


Avengers: Infinity War

by Firey_Mana



Series: Infinity war/Endgame AU trilogy [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Additional characters/relationships to be added in the next one, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, BAMF Avengers, BAMF Steve Rogers, BAMF Tony Stark, Battle of Wakanda (Avengers: Infinity War), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Science, F/M, FRIDAY is sapient, Gen, Hurt, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity Gems, Knowhere (Marvel), Mild Language, Nova Corps, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Science Fiction, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony and the others go to Xandar, Vormir, Xandar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2020-08-14 14:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 29,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20193451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firey_Mana/pseuds/Firey_Mana
Summary: Chapter 17 is an Author's note (2020 - moving forward on this)Thanos is on a quest to retrieve the Infinity stones and balance the Universe. And it starts with taking the space stone from the Asgardians.Tony is doing everything he can to prepare for the worst. With or without the Rogues. Then his worst nightmare becomes a reality.Steve was on the run, making trouble where it's worth, and avoiding it where he can. Until he's caught up in an intergalactic war.Or: What if Thanos went for the Space stone instead of the Power stone first?What I wanted to see from Infinity War (In hindsight)Canon divergence from the start, while mostly following canon from before. And be sure to read the notes for some general info!Featuring many POVs from the Avengers





	1. Loki

**Author's Note:**

> Just want to say that chapters will be at varying length depending on which scene I'm doing. So even if this is a shorter one, there should be many longer ones as well.  
Comments/Kudos appreciated!

Loki narrowed his eyes at Ebony Maw, as he paced around the ship, “Hear me, and rejoice,” he said in a high but menacing voice, taking care to step over the bodies of Asgardians., “you have the privilege of being saved by the great Titan.” He sneered at Loki. “Smile, for even in death, you have become children of Thanos,” Loki let out a shuddering breath, and turned to Thanos, who was looking out into space, holding his brother Thor in his grip.

  
“I know what it’s like to lose,” Thanos said, turning to face Loki, “to feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail, all the same.”

  
Loki felt helpless. Just an hour ago, he had felt so sure he was finally going to have peace. At least for a little while. He was still certain Earth wouldn’t have him, but he could still change form. Even if it was indefinite, it was still far better than anything else. Now it looked like all of Asgard was really on its last knees.

  
“Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives,” he continued, dragging a struggling Thor by the neck, “and now it’s here, or should I say, I am.” He held up a massive double-ended sword in his empty gauntlet.

  
“You talk too much,” grunted Thor. He coughed violently, and spit blood out onto the hull.

  
Thanos motioned for Ebony Maw to walk over, but otherwise ignored Thor, “you gave quite the show there, on Asgard. We tracked your ship, and found the Tesseract was here. So no point in hiding it anymore. Give it to me, or it’s your brother’s head,” Ebony Maw conjured crystals that pierced his skull, “I assume you have a preference?” Loki grimaced, and looked away from Thor for a moment before he materialized the Tesseract.

  
Thor twitched slightly from the where the crystals were, and glared at Loki, “you really are the worst brother,” he said weakly

  
Loki held back a wince, and looked him in the eye, “I assure you brother, the Sun will shine on us again.”

  
“Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian,” Thanos growled, tightening his grip on Thor.

  
“Well, for one thing, I’m not Asgardian. And as for another,” Loki said with relish, “We have a Hulk.” There was a roar behind him, and he ducked out of the way just in time, using the distraction to grab his brother. Hulk threw Thanos against the wall, and started pounding him into it.

  
Loki grinned until he saw Ebony Maw stop Cull Obsidian from helping, “let him have his fun,” then his grin fell.

  
Thanos pried Hulk’s hands off of him, and landed a few well placed punches to his chest and shoulder to knock him back. He quickened his attacks, and didn’t let up until he lifted him above his head, and slammed him into the already dented hull. Loki felt the vibration of the impact ring through his body, and he stared at the Hulk in shock.

  
Thanos let out a long sigh, and turned to face Loki, “Give me the Tesseract.” he said, holding out his hand. Seeing no other choice, he reluctantly held it up to him. Thanos gave him a nasty smile, and took it in his hands.

  
“This Tesseract looks quite nice, doesn’t it,” he murmured, Loki wasn’t sure if he was talking to him, so he didn’t answer. Thanos didn’t wait for one, and crushed the Tesseract in his hand. He pulled a brilliant blue stone from the fragments, and placed it in his gauntlet; Immense energy surged through him, and after a few heavy breaths, he turned his attention back to them, “the first stone,” he announced to the Black Order.

  
Ebony Maw was the first to bow, “you are about to be the first being in the Universe to wield all of the infinity stones, my Liege. I am humbled in your presence,” he sank deeper into his bow.

  
“And I thank you, but we have more work to do. And quickly. There are two more stones on Earth, bring them to me, my children.”

  
“We will not fail you,” they murmured in reply.

  
“If you’re going to Earth, I may be of assistance. I do have experience there,” Loki blurted out.

  
“If your failure of New York is anything to go off of, I’m not sure we want your experience,” Thanos said, letting the last word hang.

  
“Well, I consider experience, experience. And I can still be of help,” he stepped forward, “I, Loki, rightful heir to Jotunheim,” he glanced at Thor, and looked down, “Odinson, offer my undying loyalty.” Thanos smiled, while behind him and the Order, stood the real Loki, getting ready to attack from behind.

  
He was too caught up in what he was about to do, to notice what Heimdall was doing. One moment, he was charging after Thanos, who had started to turn; and the next, he was blinded by a brilliant light.

  
When he got his bearings again, he was falling through the roof of a building and felt winded when he slammed into the ground. A moment later, Dr. Strange, and someone he hadn’t seen before peered somewhere over them.

  
“I thought I told you Loki -” Stephen started angrily, but stopped mid-sentence, “who’s this?” He asked, throwing a quizzical look to his side, Loki turned, and saw Bruce turn from the Hulk, he was breathing heavily, and saying something over and over.

  
“Thanos - Thanos is coming,” he finally said, disoriented.

  
“Who?” Stephen asked.


	2. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a longer chapter, as promised! Sorry if formatting is odd. Don't know how to fix that.
> 
> EDIT: Still don't know how to fix formatting, but just took care of some errors I missed this morning.

“Okay, okay, slow down. Hear me out.” Tony said in a rush, jogging to catch up to Pepper.  


“You’re rambling again,” she said, half exasperated, half endearingly, “and you lost me.”  


Pepper and Tony were out on a morning stroll together, something they tended to do more often these days since FRIDAY took over a lot of the defense systems that were weighing Tony down. They were walking hand in hand until Tony remembered something and started talking, almost excitedly.  


“Look,” said Tony, moving his hands in wild gestures, “You know when you’re having a dream, and you need to pee-”  
  
“Yeah,” she interrupted, smiling. She tilted her head, wondering where this was going.

“Oh my God, there’s no bathrooms, what am I going to do.” he continued, adjusting his glasses, ignoring her.

“I think everyone has those.” She said, turning on the path they were walking on, “And then you wake up, and you really have to pee,”

“Exactly,” Tony finished, “right.”

“Like I said, everybody has those-”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” he said, letting a little excitement edge into his voice, “last night, I dreamt, we had a kid.”

Pepper almost tripped, and stopped walking, “What?”

“It was so real,” he said, rambling again, “we named him, oh, what was your eccentric Uncle’s name-”

“Morgan,” she said, almost weakly, “so, you woke up, and thought, we were-”

“Expecting?” He asked, almost hopefully.

“No,” she said.

“I had a dream about it, it was so real-” 

Pepper took his hands into her own, “if you wanted to have a kid, you wouldn’t have done that,” she said, pointing at his arc reactor.

“I’m glad you brought this up, it’s nothing, it’s just a housing unit for my-”

“You’re not helping your case, and what about making Fri sapient?” she said, shaking her head.

“It’s detachable, it’s not a - and Fri is fine. I took every precaution known to man when I made her, then I took some more, Iron man is almost only for emergencies now.”

“You don’t need the reactor,” she said, insistent.

“I know, I’m just trying to protect us, and maybe even our future us’. Just in case there’s a monster in the closest, instead of you know-”

“Shirts?” She asked, her eyes were shining.

“You know me so well, you even finish my sentences,” she sighed, and leaned back on her heels.

“You should have shirts in your closest.” she said exasperated. 

“Yeah,” he drawled out, “you know what, we should have no more surprises. I should promise you,” he said, giving her a peck on the lips. “You and me, have a nice dinner tonight, I can put down the reservation,” a small giggle escaped her, “and we should have no surprises, ever.” Tony leaned in for a longer kiss, when there was a rush of wind, and something warm blowing on his face.

“Tony Stark, I’m Dr. Stephen Strange, and I need you to come with me,” said a man standing outside a swirling orange door into another room. “Oh, and congratulations on the wedding, by the way.”

Pepper grabbed his hand in shock, while Tony eyed him up and down, taking note of the cloak, “I’m sorry, we didn’t order a magician.” he blurted out, still stunned himself.

“We need your help. I don’t think it’s overselling it to say the fate of the Universe is at stake here.” Tony’s stomach dropped like a pit.

“And who’s we?” He demanded, trying to get his bearings. Someone stepped in behind Stephen, in whatever room that was.

“Hey Tony,” said Bruce, wringing his hands nervously.

“Bruce?” he asked tentatively. Bruce walked forward hesitantly, and quickly embraced him.

“At the dawn of the Universe, there was nothing, then bang,” started someone he’d never seen before, named Wong. Although that was true of Strange too. He was moving his hands to show a projection of some sort. More advanced than a hologram as far as he could tell, and much more detailed. Tony was hanging onto every word he said, trying to remember as much as possible. “The big bang sent six elemental crystals hurtling across the virgin Universe.” he continued, “these ‘infinity stones’ each control an essential aspect of existence.”

“Space,” Stephen started, “Reality, Power, Soul, Mind, and-” he turned to face Tony, and moved his hands in a complicated motion to reveal what was in the pendant, “Time.”

Tony let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “Tell me his name again.”

“Thanos.” Said Bruce, walking over. “He’s a plague Tony, he wipes out planets, takes what he wants. The attack on New York, that’s him.”

“This is it.” Tony said, standing abruptly. “What’s our timeline?”

“No telling, probably not long at all,” came a new, but recognizable voice. Loki stepped out of the shadows, and revealed himself to Tony. He jumped, and a gauntlet formed around his hand in a second.

“You! Give me one good reason I should blast your face off to kingdom come-”

“Tony, don’t shoot him,” Bruce said, raising his hands.

“Bruce? What’s this about, somebody better be quick at explaining!” He said, panic rising in his voice.

“Loki may have invaded New York, but he was being controlled, manipulated. Thanos was pulling the strings.”

“Even still, he’s the God of mischief, why should we trust him?”

“Because ‘I’ want him gone as much as I do,” said Loki, stepping forward cautiously, “believe me, this wasn’t what I had in mind, but now we’re here, and we have to work together. Thanos already has the space stone, that makes him one of the most powerful beings in the Universe, and if he gets his hands on all six-”

“Thanos could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of.” Stephen finished. Tony was staring at him with a blank expression, and shook his head, laughing slightly as he did.

“Always thought something like this would happen, but not like this,” he said in a low voice, “if he needs all six, why don’t we just dump this one?” He asked aloud to them.

“No can do,” Strange replied.

“We swore an oath-” started Wong.

“And I swore off dairy, but then Ben and Jerry’s named a flavor after me-” An alert flashed on his lenses, and he tapped the side of his glasses. “Hey Fri,”

“Hello Tony, we have a situation,” she said plainly.

“Yeah, I know, I need you to start up protocol Independence Day,” he sighed. He really had to let Peter pick the name.

“Tony? Is there an invasion imminent?” she asked worryingly.

“If who I’m talking to have their stories straight, something should be here pretty soon. I need you to come to one-seven-seven a Bleecker Street. Get here as fast as you can.”

“Okay, I’m on my-” she paused.

“Fri?” he asked urgently.

“I’ve got two ships entering the atmosphere, one over New York, the other over Scotland,” she said, she sounded apprehensive.

Tony swore, “right, get here yesterday. Code red, and send a couple support units towards Scotland and here.”

“Done, I’ll be there in a few.”

Tony tapped his glasses again. “Okay, Fri is on her way. She’s at the Avenger’s compound right now, so it shouldn’t take long.”

“FRIDAY?” Bruce asked curiously.

“Yeah, remember her? I upgraded her, she’s a true AI now, like Vision. But not crazy, like Ultron.”

“You made another superbot?” Bruce exclaimed, “didn’t you learn from last time?”

“Yeah, I did. I took every precaution possible, made sure she couldn’t get out if she tried. Peter helped me ‘humanize’ her. And I had to after the Avengers split.”

Bruce recoiled, as did Loki to the surprise of Tony. “Split up? What are you talking about? And who’s Peter?”

Tony heard some noise outside, and made it for the door. “We haven’t caught up in a spell, have we?” he said, walking outside. Bruce closely followed, as did Loki after changing his appearance. “We split up, we’re toast,” he said bluntly, “Cap and I aren’t on speaking terms.”

“It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to,” Bruce said pleadingly, “Thanos is here, we need to-” Tony shushed him, and looked out at the street, people were running towards them, leaving their cars, and panicking, and something became incredibly loud in the distance.

“They’re here,” he said, almost quietly enough for Bruce to miss it. Tony strode forward faster, helping people up when they fell, and telling people to get indoors, “Fri, alert all emergency personnel, set up an evacuation route past forty-third, and get the defense platforms warmed up. Strange, you might want to put that stone in your back pocket!”

“Just sent the order to the Avengers compound, they’re taking care of it,” she replied over the comms. Tony turned the corner with the others, his ears pounding painfully over the noise. An orange wave washed over the ship, and it went silent. Tony looked over his shoulder and smirked. Then a transparent blue beam was cast onto the pavement, and two figures walked out.

“Here me, and rejoice,” the smaller alien started, “You are about to die at the hands of the children of Thanos.” He started walking towards them. “Be thankful, that your meaningless lives-”

“I’m sorry, who are you? You need to pack it up, and get outta here. Earth is closed today.”

“Very persuasive Tony,” Fri said sarcastically, “I’m sure they’ll listen to reason now.”

“I always am,” Tony muttered.

“Stonekeeper,” the smaller alien said, clearly annoyed, “does this, chattering animal, speak for you?” In his ear, Fri laughed a bit, and Tony scoffed.

“Certainly not, I speak for myself.” He said, conjuring a couple orange shields. “You are trespassing in this city, and on this planet,” beside him, Wong mimicked his movement to conjure shields of his own.”

“It means get lost Squidward,” Tony called out, Loki looked at him in confusion.

“Honestly Tony, do you have a death wish?” Fri asked, “I’ll be there soon, don’t get killed.”

“I’ll try,” Tony said, “Banner, you want a piece?” He asked without turning to him.

“Not really, but when do I get what I want?”

“Exactly,” he said, not catching the tone in his voice, “Feels good, doesn’t it? Getting back into it? Been awhile,” Bruce grunted beside him for a few moments, and Tony turned to him, confused.

“Dude,” he muttered, “you’re embarrassing me in front of the wizards.”

Bruce panted, “I can’t,” he held up a finger to his head, and circled it around, “He’s not… he won’t, I don’t know.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Tony said in a softer voice, “Wong, keep an eye on him?” The man nodded in response, and Tony walked forward to the alien that was now running towards him. He pulled down a pair of straps on his athleticwear and tapped the reactor twice to let the nanobots spill out into a suit for him. It formed around his body like a viscous liquid, and created a protective shield above his head just in time for the alien’s hammer to make contact with it. It stumbled back, and Tony released a handful of cluster cannons to knock the alien back, while the smaller one waved it away lazily.

“What was that?” asked Bruce in amazement. Loki looked interested as well.

“It’s nanotech, you like it?” he asked, just before he was shot in the air against his will. “Ah shit,” Tony muttered when he was falling back down, “I need to get back in there.” he reoriented himself, and rocketed towards the aliens, right past Strange, and shot a high energy blast at them. “Strange, you gotta get that stone out of here.”

“It stays with me,” he said firmly.

“Exactly,” He replied, “bye!” Tony went for another round at the larger alien, but was knocked backwards into the park by something that extended away from it like a whip. He groaned, and was about to get back up when the larger alien had caught up and swung his hammer down. Tony quickly materialized a shield, but didn’t feel any impact; he was confused until he looked over the edge and saw Peter.

“Kid, where did you come from?” Tony asked, amazed at the timing.

“Field trip,” Peter said far too cheerfully. Then the giant alien grabbed him by the side and threw him across the park as he yelled out, “from MoMA!”

“Oh, right, that,” he said nonchalantly, getting up, and shooting again.

“Uh huh, that. Who was it again who told me to get over my, what was it, ‘irrational fear of field trips’?” He asked as he pulled a car in the air down onto its head.

“Yeah, yeah. I should’ve left you home so we didn’t have to deal with another invasion on our asses.” Tony said flatly, throwing up another shield at the alien’s giant ax. Or was it a hammer?

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Peter said, swinging around another car from behind to distract the alien. He roared, and turned to Peter, so it must’ve worked.

“So what’s going on?” Peter said, bounding over to him.

“There’s a couple of aliens, and they want to steal a necklace from a wizard.” Yeah, that should be simple enough, Tony thought.

In the background, the smaller alien was floating away, carrying Strange, “Kid, that’s the wizard.”

“On it!” Peter said, eagerly swinging after his new ‘mission’. The alien was about to go after him, until Tony stabbed a nanotech dagger into its back. Loki came out of nowhere, or rather, several Loki’s came out to attempt to stab it. The alien roared even louder, and threw Tony and one of the Loki’s off of themselves. 

Tony got back up, and was about to get caught in the whip when Fri came out of nowhere, and blasted the alien across the park. “Oh hey,” he said when she landed. “Better late than never I guess.”

“I’m always punctual,” she said casually, hovering in the air. She was shorter than Tony, and had the face of a young woman, but had features on her face and body that showed she was artificially made.

“Uh, guys?” Peter said over the comms, “help, I’m being beamed up!”

“I’ll go get him, take care of that guy,” said Fri, blasting off towards the now ascending ship.

“Not again kid,” muttered Tony, he turned his attention to a rather pissed off alien, and swung an energy blade down to cut it. It roared in pain. Wong came up from behind, and shot a few spells at it, and opened a portal over it. The alien tried jumping up, but Wong closed it over its fist.

“Wong, you’re invited to my wedding!” Tony said.

“Take me with you,” demanded Loki, before Tony had the chance to go up.

“Your funeral,” Tony said, and blasted off with Loki in tow, “Fri-”

“I’ve already unlocked seventeen a,” she said, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. “Get up here quick.”

“I’m working on it,” he said, initiating his enhanced foot thruster. Loki grunted from beside him, and looked like he was struggling to breathe. Tony went wide eyed for a moment, “Peter, how’re you doing?”

“It’s getting harder to breathe. The air is thin up here,” he wheezed.

“Just hold on kid, help is arriving.”

“Yeah, will do.” Peter replied weakly. To Tony’s side, the Iron Spider sped past them.

“Peter, now I need you to let go, so the suit can catch you. We’re too high up, you’re running out of air.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Peter said quietly. Tony watched a small figure fall from the ship, and his heart leaped into his throat in that moment, but when the suit made contact, he breathed in relief.

“Mr. Stark, it smells like a new car in here!”

Tony chuckled, “Happy trails kid, Fri, send him home, and cut off communications.”

“Oh, come on!” Peter said before disappearing from sight.

Tony lifted Loki to where Fri was attached to the ship, and together, she and Tony cut a hole into the ship to let themselves inside. They sealed the hole, and Loki gasped for air.

“I’m never doing that again,” he said, coughing violently.

Tony let the helmet retract from his head, and patched a call to Pepper. “Hey Pep,” he said in a falsely cheery voice.

“Tony, oh God, where are you.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, looking up at the ship for the first time. He felt incredibly small in that moment, “I think we’re gonna have to push our eight-thirty res.”

“You’re not on that ship are you?” Fri and Loki looked sympathetic at him.

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“Tony, come back, come back-” the signal was cutting out now.

“Wait, Pep!” He was confused, this was supposed to be an FTL transmitter. Why wasn’t it working?

“The call has dropped,” came a voice from his personal AI, PLATO. It was a fair bit simpler than even FRIDAY or JARVIS was before they became something more, because he didn’t need too much sophistication anymore, but was mostly tailored to combat and tactics.

“FTL comms must not work when you’re in transit,” said Fri, in a pondering voice.

“So what do we do now?” Asked Loki, he and Fri looked at him.

“I guess we’re on our own now.”


	3. Wanda

“Wait, repeat that?” Asked Wanda, who was walking hand in hand with Vision. He was in his human form, and they were taking a nighttime stroll, as it was unlikely for anyone to see them in the empty streets.

  
“Stay here, with me.” He stated, stopping on the sidewalk, cupping his hands over her cheeks. “I’m tired of us being separated all the time.”

  
“I am too, but-” Wanda started, before becoming distracted at something behind him.

  
“Or not,” Vision said quickly, “if I’m-”

  
“No, you’re not,” said Wanda quietly, walking over to the television screens at the window. It was a report from a few minutes ago, of Tony and Fri going up towards an alien ship. She covered her mouth in shock, and Vision walked up behind her watching with a bit of fear on his face. “What are they?”

  
“What the stone was warning me about,” he said in a low voice. He took her hand and kissed it gently before backing away, “I have to go.”

  
“No, Vis, if that’s true, then maybe going isn’t the best idea.” she said in a shaky voice.

  
“Wanda, I-” Vision was interrupted by something stabbing him from behind.

  
“Vision!” Wanda exclaimed in fear. Behind him was an alien with a large spear. Vision returned to his normal form, and was tossed aside. She was about to use her powers against the wretched creature until something shot her from behind. She landed in a storefront window, and felt the glass cutting into her. On the street, the taller alien was using its spear to pry the stone off of Vision, while a blue one watched, so she manipulated her hands to conjure a pulse wave to throw them back.

  
Wanda used her telekinesis to lift Vision up, and fly to the top of a building, out of their immediate reach. She was panicking, and was clumsy in flying him. She stumbled on landing, and quickly stopped Vision from hitting the ground just as he was about to. She pulled him forward, and lifted him up so he could walk. Thankfully, his body was starting to repair itself, but it was slower than usual.

  
Vision stumbled, and leaned against a wall. “The blade, it stopped me from phasing.” he said, sounding like he was in pain. “My systems are failing. I’m beginning to think we should’ve stayed in bed,” he said in an attempt at a joke. Wanda smiled worryingly, as she used her powers to seal the wound.

  
There was a rustle behind him, and Vision had just enough time to block his hands in front of the alien that had thrown itself at him. So he used his flight to slam the alien against the walls and try to slow it down, but it was too fast to subdue.

  
Wanda was behind a pillar, looking for an opportunity to step in when the blue alien used their weapon to shoot an energy blast at her. It narrowly missed, and she had to use her powers to deflect and block the weapon from making contact with her. The blue alien was fast, and she could barely keep up with them. She was backing away, and the alien used a split second moment when she wasn’t using her powers to shoot an energy blast at her, which shoot her across the street again.

  
She used her telekinesis to break her fall, and got her bearings just in time to block a strike that would’ve meant death. “Give up,” they hissed, pushing the spear down further, the alien sounded female to her.

  
“No,” she said, throwing her off. Wanda ducked to avoid the blade the alien was spinning around, and behind them came an energy beam that blew up a nearby car. She heard Vision scream out, and used everything she had to throw the alien into the explosion before flying up to the building. She saw the alien was still trying to pry the stone off, and she raised her hands to fight, “hands off,” she said in a threatening voice. She shot him through a window, and pulled Vision up to get him to safety. She tried flying again, but an energy blast came out of nowhere, and they fell through a glass roof into a train station.

  
They hit the ground, and rolled to a stop. Wanda panted, and rushed over to Vision. “Come on, you need to get up,” she said in an urgent voice, “you gotta get up,” she said, trying to encourage him. “We have to go,” Vision shook his head and cupped her cheek.

  
“Listen to me, please leave,” he pleaded.

  
“You asked me to stay, I’m staying,” she said with finality. Vision tried to protest, but was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking. Wanda looked over her shoulder and saw the aliens trying to approach again.

  
She stood over him in a protective stance, prepared to fight, when they stopped approaching, and looked at something behind her. She was confused, but didn’t turn to look in case it was a trick. They wouldn’t stop staring, and her curiosity got the best of her when she turned too. The blue alien threw her spear at whoever was across the train tracks and they caught it. The figure stepped out of the shadows, and Wanda breathed a sigh of relief. It was Steve.

  
She heard a crash from where the aliens were, and saw Sam flying out of nowhere. He had kicked the blue alien into a restaurant. She was relieved to see them. Sam launched several missiles at the other alien, but they deflected all of them. Natasha used this distraction to grab the energy spear the blue one dropped, and surprised it by cutting them across their leg, and in the stomach. Nat dodged a few hits until the energy spear was pulled out of her hands, and Steve grabbed the other spear off the ground to use it against the now angry alien from hitting Nat. He and Nat quickly blocked and deflected her attacks, until Sam swooped down, and kicked her back again.

  
“Get up,” the blue alien growled to her partner.

  
“I can’t,” the other one replied.

  
“We don’t want to kill you, but we will,” said Nat.

  
The blue alien straightened, “you’ll never get the chance again,” she raised her hand, and a blue beam appeared, lifting the two aliens out. The spear was pulled from Steve’s hand, and they rose back out of the sky.

  
“Come on,” said Steve, helping Vision up, “let’s get you to the jet.”

  
They walked outside, and boarded the Quinjet that was sitting in the middle of the empty street, when they got inside, Steve turned to her and Vision, “what were you thinking?” He asked.

  
“We just wanted to be alone-” Wanda started.

  
“You could’ve been killed today, both of you,” Steve said, interrupting her. He ran a hand through his hair.

  
“We weren’t expecting anything like this to happen,” Wanda exclaimed, “and we were still within range.”

  
“You two need to start staying closer. But for now, we need to regroup,” he sighed, “this is what Tony was always warning us about,” he muttered.

  
“Where are we going?” She asked.

  
“The Avengers compound.”

The flight back was mostly quiet. Wanda was slowly repairing Visions damaged body, and they didn’t have much else to talk about. When they arrived, there was nobody trying to shoot them down, to their surprise. Steve and Wanda helped Vision off the jet, and they went inside to find Rhodey.

  
He was in a conference room, talking to the holographic projections of the Accords council, and was arguing with them about something when they walked through the door. Rhodey did a double take, and Ross glared at him. “Mr. Secretary,” Steve said, with a look of indifference. His hologram walked forward in front of Steve, and addressed him.

  
“You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that,” Ross said.

  
“You could use some of that right about now,” Nat said. Ross ignored her.

  
“The world is on fire, and you think all is forgiven?” He asked Steve.

  
“I’m not looking for forgiveness, and I’m way past asking permission. You just lost Earth’s best defenders. So we’re here to fight. And if you stand in our way, we’ll fight you too.”

  
Ross turned to Rhodey, “arrest them.”

  
Rhodey nodded his head a couple times, “all over it,” he said before waving away the holograms in the room. There was a couple beeps behind him, and Rhodey sighed, “that’ll be the court martial,” he said, walking over, “it’s great to see you Cap,” he said, holding out his hand.

  
Steve took it, “you too Rhodey,” he said, nodding. Nat embraced Rhodey, and he returned it before turning to the others.

  
“You guys look like crap. Must’ve been a tough couple of years,” he said.

  
“Yeah, well,” Sam started, “the hotels weren’t exactly five star.”

  
“Well I think you look great,” came a voice in the back. The Rogues turned to them, and Bruce stepped out. “Yeah, I’m back,” he said, looking nervous.

  
“Hi Bruce,” said Nat, her mouth was agape.

  
“Nat,” Bruce said, still looking apprehensive.

“No, we have to destroy it,” said Vision, leaning against the wall. They were just talking about Loki and how he had changed, but since he wasn’t on Earth, there wasn’t much to do about it, so they were arguing over what to do with Vision and the stone, and couldn’t come to a conclusion. “I’ve been giving it a great deal of thought, and I;m sure that if it were exposed to an energy source,” he said slowly, walking over to Wanda, “perhaps similar to its own, we might be able to destroy it.”

  
Wanda went wide-eyed, “But Vis, that would kill you. We aren’t having this conversation.”

  
“Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain,” Vision insisted.

  
“That’s too high a price,” said Wanda, shaking her head in disbelief.

  
Vision brushed aside her hair, trying to be gentle, “only you have the power to pay it.” Wanda shook her head, and walked away.

  
“Thanos wants half the Universe; one life cannot stand in the way of defeating him,” Vision said to the group.

  
“But it should,” Steve sighed, “we don’t trade lives, Vision,” he said.

  
“Captain, seventy years ago, you’d lay down your life for how many millions of people? Tell me how this is different.”

  
“Because you might have a choice,” interjected Bruce, “your mind is a complex overlay of different constructs. JARVIS, Ultron, Tony, me, all mixed and learning from each other.”

  
“You’re saying Vision isn’t just the stone?” Asked Wanda hopefully.

  
“I’m saying, if we take out the stone, there’s still a lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts,” Bruce replied.

  
“Can we do that?” Nat asked.

  
“Not me, not here,” said Bruce, shaking his head, “Tony might know, he made Fri sapient without any help, but he’s not here.”

  
“Well you better find something, and somewhere fast. Ross isn’t going to let you have your old rooms back,” said Rhodey. Steve looked like he was thinking about something.

  
“I think I may have an idea,” he said.

  
“Where?” Asked Bruce.

  
“Home. Wakanda.” Steve said, looking at Vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is pretty close to what the movie had, but things start really diverging in chapter 5 onwards. Chapter 4 will feature the Guardians. Some stuff will change as well, but it will also likely be close to the movie.


	4. Quill

Peter watched Gamora spin the double-sided blade of hers. She told him a long time ago that Thanos gave it to her. He remembered once asking why she didn’t destroy it; “to remind me of my past, and why I fight him.” she had told him.

  
Peter knew she didn’t make a habit of pulling it out, so he walked over to where she was sitting, and looked worryingly at her. “What’s on your mind?” He asked quietly.

  
“I think you know,” she said, retracting the blade, and standing up. “But I need to ask you something.”

  
“Yeah, anything,” Peter said without hesitation, Gamora sighed.

  
“No, you don’t understand. I know something that could be the difference between saving the Universe or not,” she said, facing him.

  
“Well, what is it?” Asked Peter, searching her face.

  
“If I told you, you’d know too,” she said, looking out the window. “I need you to promise me something.”

  
“Okay, what is it?”

  
“One way or another, the path we’re on leads to Thanos. If he captures me, if something goes wrong, I need you to kill me.”

  
Petter sputtered. “Look, I’d love to, but I don’t think-”

  
“Peter,” she snapped. Gamora looked down at her hands guiltily and spoke in a smaller voice, “please. He can’t know what I know. Swear to me on your mother,” she said, looking him in the eye.

  
He was silent for a moment, and let out a quiet breath. “Okay, I promise. Just try not to get into that situation.”

  
Gamora nodded, “I’ll try,” she said. Peter tilted her chin up and leaned in for a kiss. They were only interrupted when they heard the sounds of rustling behind them. Peter broke away, and found Drax, standing in the doorway, eating chips slowly and watching them.

  
“Dude! How long were you standing there for?” Peter asked, throwing his hands apart in annoyance.

  
“I’ve been here the entire time,” he said, lifting another chip to his mouth.

  
“What are you doing?” Asked Gamora, in an exasperated tone.

  
“I have mastered the art of standing so perfectly still, I turn invisible,” he said, going for another chip.

  
Peter and Gamora threw looks of confusion at each other, then Drax. “But I can see you,” Peter said.

  
“No you can’t,” said Drax, eating another chip.

  
“Hey Drax!” Mantis had just walked in, and waved at him, probably wondering what was going on.

  
“Dammit,” Drax said, walking off.

  
“Okay,” Peter said slowly, “I wonder what-” He was interrupted by a beeping in the console. Peter walked over, and saw it was from Kraglin. “Oh hey, Kraglin,” Peter said, patching him through, “what’s up?”

  
“Do you really not know what’s going on?” Kraglin asked. The Guardian’s and Kraglin’s Ravager group had been working together since Ego was killed, and Yondu died. And over the years, they had become good friends.

  
“If this is about Thanos, yeah, we’re on our way to Knowhere, that’s where the Reality stone is,” Peter replied.

  
“Do you know what’s happening on Xandar?” He asked, Peter felt his stomach drop.

  
“No,” he said slowly, “are they trying to take the Power stone?”

  
“I think so, there’s a global evacuation going on. And the Nova Corp forces are being overwhelmed. I’ve contacted the other Ravager groups, but only a few are coming.”

  
Peter swore, “we’ll be there later. For now, we have to stop Thanos from getting another stone-”

  
“Well, be careful, he’s a nasty piece of work.”

  
“Oh, don’t I know it, we need to go Kraglin, we’re about ready to make the jump.” The call ended in another beep, and the room fell silent.

  
“This isn’t good,” said Gamora, “he’s pushing for the stones hard.”

  
“Yeah,” said Peter, “look, I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?” Gamora nodded, and Peter walked over to the ship controls. “Let’s hope we get there in time,” as he went through the gate.

  
“Okay everyone, we need to get in, get the stone, and get the hell outta dodge.” Peter was explaining to them when they arrived. “We don’t want to stick around for Thanos to pull us apart. So we can’t waste time.” The others nodded, and picked up their weapons, “watch each other’s backs,” he added.

  
Gamora opened the ramp, and led them down into the Collectors chambers. It was oddly quiet, and that put them on edge. “He’s here,” Peter said quietly, “be ready for anything.”

  
Peter motioned them to follow him, and he heard voices down the hall, he turned to them, and put a finger to his lips, and slowly went closer. “We need a plan,” he said, leaning over to Gamora, she didn’t stop walking, and stood behind a tall pillar to overlook the scene. Thanos was standing over the collector, talking to him.

  
“Tell me where the stone is,” Thanos said in a menacing voice.

  
“Please, I don’t have it. I told you, I sold it.” The Collector wheezed, Thanos had a foot on his chest, making it harder to breathe, he put his hands over his chest. “Why would I lie to you?”

  
Thanos sighed, “I imagine it’s like breathing for you. Tell me where the stone is.”

  
“I didn’t know what it was, I swear-”

  
“Then you really are the fool I took you for. Last chance, where’s the stone?”

  
“Alright, you go right,” Peter said into Gamora’s ear, he leaned over to the others, “we’ll flank him on the left, catch him by surprise. He doesn’t have the stone yet.” Peter edged closer, and motioned for the others to stop, but they kept walking. “Wait, wait,” Peter told them, trying to stop them. Gamora walked past him, “go right, go right.”

  
“Today, Thanos pays for the lives of my family,” said Drax, unsheathing his swords.

  
“Drax, wait,” Peter said, panic rising in his voice. He got in front of him, and tried to stop him, but he kept pushing. Mantis came from behind, and put a hand on his head.

  
“Sleep,” she said, her antennae glowed, and Drax hit the floor with a metallic thud. A strange noise escaped Peter’s throat, and everyone ducked. Thanos stopped talking to the collector, and Peter pulled out his belt.

  
“Okay, Gamora, you go right, we’ll go left and flank him-” Gamora stopped listening to him, and leapt over some crates, Peter heard the clang of a sword hitting something, and Peter peered over to see Gamora hitting Thanos. He broke the sword she had, but Gamora pulled it back and stabbed it in his throat. Peter’s jaw dropped, it couldn’t have been that easy. Thanos fell to the floor, and Gamora soon started crying.

  
The collector, who had escaped to the cage, started applauding her, and Peter felt a little sick. He tentatively walked around the crates to where Gamora was, when Thanos disappeared, and the view of an abandoned chamber was replaced by fiery ruins. “In my heart, I knew you still cared. One never knows for sure,” came Thanos’ voice, “reality is often disappointing That is, it was. Now reality can be whatever I want.” Peter looked around, until Thanos materialized in front of where Gamora was standing - where the corpse of Thanos was moments before.

  
“You knew we were going to come,” Gamora said nervously.

  
“I counted on it. There’s something we need to discuss little one,” he said, walking closer. Gamora tried getting another shot in, but Thanos deflected it easily.

  
“Thanos!” Drax roared, Peter was about to stop him when Thanos closed his fist, and Drax turned into cubes. He did the same with Mantis, and turned her to ribbons, Peter looked at them, horrified. He stood there, shocked, until he broke himself out of the trance, and walked out, holding out his blaster.

  
“Let her go, Grimace,” Thanos smirked at him.

  
“Peter-” Gamora started, choking up.

  
Peter ignored her, keeping his eyes, and blaster, aimed at Thanos, “I told you to go right.” Gamora struggled in Thanos’ grip.

  
“Peter please, you promised,” her voice cracked at the last word.

  
“Let her go!” Peter said desperately.

  
“Ah, the boyfriend,” Thanos said, in almost a mocking tone.

  
“I like to think of myself as a long term, Titan-killing booty call. Let her go,” Peter said, rambling now, “Or I swear, I’m going to blast that ugly ass-”

  
“Not him, me.” Gamora said, clearer now. She breathed heavily for a moment, and looked him in the eye. “You promised.”

  
Peter blinked back tears, and reluctantly pointed the blaster at her.

  
“Oh daughter,” Thanos drawled, “you expect too much from him. Well?” Asked Thanos, “she’s asked, hasn’t she? So do it.” Thanos said, pushing her closer to Peter. “Do it!” He yelled.

  
Peter could feel tears going down his face, “I told you to go right.”

  
“I love you, more than anything” Gamora said.

  
“I love you too,” Peter clenched his eyes, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, and he opened his eyes again, seeing bubbles streaming from the blaster. He looked at Thanos, who just smiled.

  
“I like him,” he closed his fist, and a portal appeared behind them, pulling them through.

  
Peter stood, shell shocked, and didn’t notice Drax and Mantis getting back up behind him until they walked past him.

  
"We need to, we need to," Peter was repeating himself, and shaking, "we need to go," he said. His feet moved towards the ship before he realized, and he didn't notice his normal blaster was back in his hand.

  
When they got back on the ship, Peter took off, and began to head for the nearest gate, until he had no idea where to go. He tried calling Kraglin, but no luck, he must've been busy, or in transit.

  
"Shit," he said for the umpteenth time, he decided he was just going to head for Xandar when he got a call from Nebula.

  
"Hey Nebula," Peter said, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice.

  
"Peter, Thanos has Gamora, she's taking him to the soul stone," she explained urgently.

  
On the list of things he thought Gamora knew, this wasn't one of them. "What? That's what she knew?"

  
"Yes, but you can't go there. But I know there's a ship headed for Titan with one of the stones, Thanos will be there."

  
"Titan? His homeworld? Alright, I'm on my way," he said, "I was just about to head to Xandar, where the Power stone is."

  
"I'll go there then, help protect it. But my ship will be slow."

  
"That's fine, we'll be fine, I hope," said Peter, about to go through the gate, "I need to go, don't let Thanos get that stone."

  
"Same to you," Nebula said before she hung up. Peter went through the gate, finding himself wishing he just pulled the trigger when he had the chance.


	5. Gamora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you happen to wonder where the beginning comes from, it was from a deleted scene of Infinity war.

_ “The planet has been taken, father,” Gamora said to Thanos, walking up the steps of a massive throne, she bowed before him, “the Third-eyed King pledges eternal loyalty to your cause.” _

_ “So he accepted the terms?” Thanos asked. _

_ “Eventually,” said Gamora with the hint of a smile on her face. She threw a metal bag on the steps, and it hit with a thud that echoed throughout the chamber. _

_ “Well done, daughter, well done,” Thanos said. Gamora had a look of pride on her face. _

“Stop it,” said Gamora, clenching her fists.

Thanos stepped out from behind the throne, past the old Thanos. “Why?” He asked, Gamora looked down, not meeting his eyes, “by the looks of it,” he said, turning around the memory of Gamora, “you seemed content enough at the time.”

Gamora looked upon the smiling, prideful face of her past self, and blinked back tears,”I was a prisoner.” Thanos closed his fist, and in a wave of red, their past selves disappeared.

“You are a warrior,” he said.

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“You didn’t refuse,” he replied, sitting on the stone steps, “after my planet died, I had nothing, no one. But I was alright with that, I had a new vocation. Then I found you,” he said in a voice that sounded parental. But Gamora didn’t feel warm, a chill ran down her spine, and she shuddered. “And at my side,” he continued, “you became the fiercest warrior in the Galaxy.” He looked down, “that’s why I chose you to find the Soul stone.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” she said in an indifferent voice.

“I am disappointed.” Thanos said, standing abruptly. He walked down the steps towards her, “not because you didn’t find the stone,” he leaned down to Gamora’s ear, “but because you did. And you lied to me.” Gamora felt a rush of fear, but didn’t let it show on her face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking-” She said in a whisper.

“I gave you my trust!” Thanos said loudly, she flinched, “and you paid it with deceit. At least be honest with it now,” he said, in a quieter voice. He straightened up, and walked back to the steps “I can make you tell me,” he told her, “you seem to know I never wanted to force you into anything. That’s why when you left me all those years ago,” he said, facing her, “I allowed it.”

Gamora let out a laugh, which surprised her, “you allowed it?”

“You haven’t been under the impression you escaped, have you?” Gamora’s smile turned into a grimace, and Thanos chuckled, “daughter, I raised you smarter than that.”

She had enough, “I’m not your daughter,” she snapped, “you kidnapped me, orphaned me, imprisoned me, everything I hate about myself comes from you,” she said, shouting. Her heart pounded painfully, but she almost didn’t care. She took a couple shaky breaths and continued in a measured voice, “I stayed, because you taught me I didn’t deserve better.”

“Why did you leave?” Thanos asked in a hushed whisper.

“Because I found people who showed me I did,” she said, her voice cracking near the end.

“You had a family here, little one.”

Gamora shook her head, “No, I didn’t.”

Thanos tilted her chin up to face her, “yes, you did,” he insisted, “you just didn’t care what happened to it.” Gamora broke away, and walked from him. Behind her, Thanos closed his fist, and pulled her into a portal to another room. It was the ship’s prison cells. Thanos opened a door, and Gamora walked inside. Curved bars that hid prisoners from the outside opened to reveal Nebula in an outstretched position in the air. Gamora gasped, and rushed to her.

“Nebula,” she said in a hushed voice. Nebula was shaking in pain, and grunting. Her body parts were expanded and exposed, and she was unable to move. Gamora reached a hand out, and withdrew it. “Don’t do this,” Gamora pleaded to Thanos.

“Some time ago, your sister snuck aboard this ship and tried to kill me,” Thanos explained, ignoring Gamora, “and she came very close to doing so. So I brought her here, to talk.” Thanos closed his fist, and expanded Nebula further apart, so she screamed.

“Stop,” Gamora begged, “stop it,” she walked over to Thanos, and put her hands on his Gauntlet, “I swear to you on my life, I never found the Soul stone.”

Thanos jerked himself away, and turned back to Nebula. Her voice filled the room, “accessing memory files,” a hologram appeared out of Nebula’s eye, and showed her and Gamora talking.

_ “You know what he’s about to do,”  _ Nebula was saying,  _ “he’s going for the stones, all of them-” _

The holographic Gamora had her arms crossed, and interrupted her,  _ “he’ll never get them all.” _ Gamora felt weak, she had forgotten about Nebula’s memory drives.

_ “What-” _

_ “He can’t Nebula, because I found a map to the Soul stone, and I destroyed it. Burned it to ashes. I burned it.” _ The hologram froze on Gamora’s face, and she looked helplessly at her past self. Thanos looked down at her expectedly.

“You’re strong,” he said to her. “Me, the generous me, taught you many things. But I never taught you to lie, that’s why you’re so bad at it,” he said, biting his words near the end. He raised his Gauntlet back up, “where is the Soul stone.” Gamora didn’t answer, and Thanos closed his fist, which made Nebula scream again, worse than last time.

Gamora clenched her eyes for a moment, and decided she couldn’t take it anymore, “Vormir!” She shouted, Nebula’s screams stopped. “The Soul stone is on Vormir,” she repeated, close to tears. Thanos released his grip on Nebula, and Gamora walked up to her, caressing her face gently, she didn’t say anything, but her face was apologetic to Nebula.

“Show me,” he said. He closed his fist again, and they found themselves on the surface of a planet. The sky, the ground, everything was a deep shade of purple, and nearby, across what looked like a lake, was a mountain with a strange structure on top. Thanos closed his fist again, but no portal appeared beside them, “It looks like we’ll have to walk up there,” Thanos said, turning to Gamora, “lead the way.”

Nebula withered in pain when Thanos left, and watched as a Chitauri drone walked in snarling at her, and speaking in its hissing language. Nebula slowly moved her joints back into place, and waited until the drone was close enough for her to take it by surprise. She groaned when she hit the floor, and crawled towards a control board. 

She looked at her limp leg, and swore under her breath bitterly, before forcing it back into place with a wince. Then she stood gingerly, and limped to the board to open communications.

“Please be in cruise,” she said to herself, a burst of static and audio click when it connected made her sigh in relief. 

“Hey Nebula,” Peter said, he sounded like the words were forced, but she didn’t have any time.

"Peter, Thanos has Gamora, she's taking him to the soul stone," she explained to him urgently.

There was a pause on his end before he spoke, "What? That's what she knew?" He asked, it sounded slightly afraid to her

"Yes, but you can't go there. But I know there's a ship headed for Titan with one of the stones, Thanos will be there."

"Titan? His homeworld? Alright, I'm on my way," he said, "I was just about to head to Xandar, where the Power stone is."

"I'll go there then, help protect it. But my ship will be slow."

"That's fine, we'll be fine, I hope," said Peter, "I need to go, don't let Thanos get that stone."

"Same to you," Nebula said before she hung up. She turned around and went to get a ship.


	6. Tony II

“Dammit, we probably don’t have much time left,” said Tony, as screams from below started to faintly echo in the ship’s massive chamber. Tony, Fri, and Loki were overlooking the ledge above Dr. Strange, trying to come up with a plan to save him, but they weren’t coming up with many ideas.

“What if I use a duplicate of myself to distract Maw while you grab the Doctor?” Loki asked, leaning over the ledge next to Tony.

“We’d still have Squidward to deal with,” said Tony in reply, “Unless you have a way to combat his magic and kill him, we’re stuck.”

“I do, I have telekinesis of my own, but it looks as if his is stronger, more focused. I would eventually be overpowered.”

The three of them went back and forth quietly for a few moments until Strange’s cloak swooped up to meet them, and spooked all of them. 

“Wow, you’re a seriously loyal piece of hardware,” said Tony, lowering his hand.

“Speaking of loyalty-” began Peter out of nowhere, lowering himself down from a web. He flipped from his position, and landed on his feet, “I know what you’re gonna say.”

“What the-” Tony’s face flipped from surprise, to worry. “You should not be here,” he said, with a pointed finger at him.

“I was gonna go home-”

“I don’t wanna hear it-” Tony said with a dismissive hand.

“But it was such a long way down, and I just thought-” Peter said, guestering below them.

“And now I gotta hear it.” Tony said, throwing his hands up in frustration. Fri and Loki watched the two with interest, and exchanged pointed looks at each other

Peter continued explaining at a rapid fire pace, “and by the way, this suit is ridiculously intuitive,” Tony swore, “so if anything, it’s kinda your fault I’m here.” Loki’s eyebrows went up, while Tony’s face, and the cloak shot up at him.

“What did you just say?”

“I take that back,” Peter said quickly, waving his hands, not noticing the cloak was mimicking Tony, “and now I’m here in space,” he weakly concluded.

“Yeah, exactly where I didn’t want you to be,” Tony said, walking over, “this isn’t Coney island, or some field trip, this is a one way ticket.” Said Tony in a hushed voice. Peter looked uncomfortable. “Don’t pretend you thought this through.”

“I did think this through-”

“You could not have possibly-”

“You can’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there’s no neighborhood.” Tony stopped talking, staring blankly at him. He let out a sigh, and conceded.

“Fine, we’ve got a situation,” Tony said, leading Peter to the ledge where he, Fri, and Loki were discussing their options. They followed Tony, who pointed to Stephen, and looked at Peter.

“See over there? The Wizard is in trouble, how are you gonna save him, go.”

Peter squatted down, and looked at Maw for a few moments, at the spaceship hull, and back at Maw. “Okay, okay, um,” he said, tapping his finger against his knee. He stood back up, and turned to the others, “so-”

“Wait, already?” Tony asked incredulously.

Peter nodded, “you ever see this really old movie, Aliens?” Tony’s expression went from intrigued to exasperated, and he looked like he was about to burst.

“Oh, I have,” piped up Fri, “I remember you showing me that one a few months ago,” Tony turned at her with an expression that read;  _ please don’t encourage him. _

“Well,” Peter said, starting to explain, “in Alien Resurrection, there was this scene where they made a hole in the ship, and the decompression kinda pushed everything out. Including the alien. So, you could blast a hole in the ship, and the rest of us get the Wizard. You can repair the hole, right?” Peter laid out his plan in a matter of seconds, and the other three looked at him in a range of expressions; from confusion, to interest, to pure exasperation.

Tony was the first to speak, “so I guess that airport battle wasn’t a one-hit wonder with movie tactics,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Peter. “Okay, I’ll bite. Loki, can you work with that?”

“Sure, someone would need to catch me so I don’t fly out of the ship too,” he said.

“I can carry you.” said Fri. Loki nodded at her.

“And I can catch the Wizard,” Peter said, “so we’re going with this plan?”

“It’s the only thing that covers all the bases,” Tony replied, “so yeah.”

“In all the time I’ve served Thanos, I’ve never failed him. If I were to reach our rendezvous on Titan with the Time stone still attached to your vaguely irritating Person, there would be judgement.” Ebony Maw said putting emphasis on the last word as he pushed more crystals in. “Painful, aren’t they?” He said to Stephen mockingly, who was shaking. He didn’t answer, and Maw seemed to enjoy watching him suffer, “they were originally designed for microsurgery-” he stopped, when he noticed Stephen was looking at someone from behind. He turned around, and saw Loki, smiling with a dagger in each hand.

“Don’t try anything traitor, I can end your friend’s life in an instant.” Maw said. To prove his point, he dug the crystals in deeper, causing another wave of painful yells from Stephen.

“He’s not my friend, I just hate you more than I dislike him.” 

Maw snarled, “Your powers are weak compared to mine,” he said, raising crates and metal from the ground. He tried to strike the metal through Loki, but it passed right through him with no damage. He was surprised for a moment until several Loki’s surrounded Maw, while the real one started blocking and countering his attacks.

Above them, Tony fired a few well aimed missiles towards the hull of the ship, and Maw himself. Loki ducked away just in time, while Maw was knocked off his feet, and out into space.

Fri grabbed Loki and flew away from the hole. Peter sped past them, and webbed onto Stephen. He almost went through the hole himself until four metallic legs extended from his back and caught him. They pushed themselves against the air forcing them out, leaving Tony to quickly seal up the hole.

Stephen and Peter hit the ground with a hard thud, and the cloak floated towards them to wrap itself on Stephen’s back. The collar looked like it was stroking his face. Fri landed with Loki a moment later, and he rubbed his arm.

“That sucked,” Peter panted.

“It was your plan,” Tony said, as his nanotech armor peeled off of him, “you okay, kid?” he asked, helping Peter up.

“Yeah, I’m fine. That was crazy.” Peter said, getting some of the eagerness back into his voice. He walked over to help Stephen up. “Hey, Mr. Wizard. I’m Peter.”

Stephen gave him an offended look, “I’m Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts.”

Peter looked at him in understanding. “Oh, we’re using our made-up names. I’m Spider-Man then,” he said, holding out his hand with a small smile. Loki snorted, which quickly turned into a laugh.

“No, that’s - you know what, nevermind,” he scoffed. Peter looked confused, and Tony walked over to Stephen.

“We need to turn this ship around,” he told Tony.

“Great, now he wants to run,” Tony said, shaking his head.

“I want to protect the stone,” Stephen said, following Tony up to where the control panel was.

“Admit it, you should’ve ducked out when I told you to. I tried to bench you, and you didn’t,” he said.

“Unlike most people in your life, I don’t work for you,” Stephen said.

“And due to that fact,” Tony said, putting stress on every word, “we’re now countless light years from Earth with no back up.”

“We’re backup,” Fri, Loki, and Peter said around the same time, with different tones of voice.

“You’re a stowaway kid,” Tony said to Peter, “And we don’t have extra supplies, any other teammates. It’s just us.” He turned back to the ship’s controls, or what seemed to be its controls, “this thing looks like it’s correcting its course. It’s on autopilot,” Tony said, looking around.

“Can you turn this ship around?” He asked.

“No, Loki might,” he said glancing at him, Loki nodded in confirmation, “but I’m thinking we shouldn’t,” everyone looked at him in confusion.

Stephen walked closer to Tony, “under no circumstances, we cannot bring the Time stone to Thanos. I don’t think you quite understand-”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand,” Tony snapped, walking up to Stephen, “Thanos has been inside my head for six years, since he sent an army to New York, and now he’s back.” Loki flinched, but Tony didn’t give any attention, “and I don’t know what to do, so I’m not so sure if it’s a better idea to fight him on our turf or his; but you saw what they did, what they can do. And if it’s on his turf, he’s not expecting it. So I say, we take the fight to him, Doctor. Do you concur?”

Stephen studied him for a moment, “Alright Stark, we go to him,” Tony gave a short breath of relief, “but you have to understand;” he said in a harder voice, and Tony looked up, “if it comes to saving you, or anyone else here, or the Time stone, I will not  _ hesitate  _ to let any of you die.”

Tony looked at him with a flicker of surprise, and pat Stephen on the shoulder, “great, moral compass.” He sighed, and walked over to Peter, “well, now’s a good time as ever,” Tony made the motion of knighting him, “congrats kid, you’re an Avenger now.” Peter stood up straighter with a look of pride.

“Do I get to be an Avenger too?” Loki asked.

Tony smirked, and shook his head, “I still don’t trust you.” Loki scoffed.

“So what now, Stark?” Stephen asked.

“I’ll give Earth a call when we’re out of transit. I took some FTL transmitters from the Chitauri, and reverse engineered them, they should give us an instant connection to Earth. Only problem is they suck down more power the farther away you are, so we won’t have long. And it doesn’t seem they work when we’re FTL.”

“So what do we do until then?” Peter asked.

“We make a plan until then,” Tony said, looking around them, “we don’t know when Thanos will come, or what exactly we’ll be facing. We know he has at least one stone-”

“The Space stone,” Loki interjected, Tony nodded, and continued.

“And he’s likely after more as we speak.” Tony finished, and turned to Loki, “so what’s his strengths, beyond the stones?”

“He’s far stronger than any of you,” Loki said in a grave tone, “even myself. If we’re going to fight him, it won’t be with strength alone. Whatever plan we make has to take account of that.”

“Wait, I finally just processed that you’re here,” Peter said shaking his head, gesturing to Loki, “why? If memory serves, which isn’t saying much considering I was ten, didn’t you try to take over New York?”

Loki opened his mouth, and closed it again, then Stephen answered for him, “Loki is on our side for the moment. Thanos orchestrated the invasion, and put Loki under a spell as a means of using him.”

“I will admit,” Loki interrupted, “I did want some semblance of glory through invading Midgard,” he said, in a tight voice, “but it was that spell which made me go through with it. I have no interest in attacking again however, and I would like to see Thanos gone.” Their group was silent for a moment, and Peter looked like he was going to say more, but took a small step back. Then they got back into the discussion again.

Stephen nodded at the group, “Back from what you mentioned earlier, I can cast temporary shields for some of you, and my mystic abilities should be able to restrain and hold him back.”

“But, what about the stones?” Fri asked, “he should be able to overpower us in any scenario.”

“Well,” Loki said in a thoughtful voice, “he does have a Gauntlet, if we can take that away, we just have to deal with brute strength.” 

Tony looked thoughtful, then stepped forward, and looked at Loki directly, “alright then, how about this, we figure out a way to restrain him long enough to take the Gauntlet off, and then Peter will take it, and use the space stone to bring him back to Earth,” Peter looked stricken for a moment.

“Wait, what? You can’t do that Mr. Stark!” Peter exclaimed, “I can help.”

“And you will kid,” Tony said, “by getting the Gauntlet as far away from Thanos as you can. And bringing it to the other Avengers for additional protection. That is possibly the most important job of all.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to do it?” Loki asked, “does he even know how to use the stone?” Tony glared at Loki.

“No,” Tony said with finality in his tone, “Peter will, and you will be the one to teach him.”

Peter looked between Tony and Loki, “you’re trying to bench me,” he said in realization. Loki turned to him, and back to Tony in understanding.

“Yes,” Tony said in a pained tone, “but at the same time, we need that Gauntlet far away. And I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt. This isn’t the Airport, or Toomes, I don’t want to see you die if I can help it.”

Peter scoffed, but nodded. Loki turned to him, and sighed, “alright then child, if you’re to bring the Gauntlet back to Earth, come with me so I can teach you how to use the stone,” Peter looked like he was about to protest Loki’s use of ‘child’ but followed him down the deck where they could have some privacy.

“Strange,” Tony said, Stephen turned to him, “keep an eye on Loki, and maybe show Peter the Time stone, might help to give him something practical to learn.” Stephen sighed, and walked over to where Peter and Loki had sat down.

“What do we do now, Tony?” Fri asked.

“We hope for the best,” Tony replied, “if there’s hope to be had. How much was able to be deployed before we left?”

“Several Defense Platforms were sent to New York and Scotland, but the entire network was still scrambling. I imagine that they’re getting the rest ready.”

Tony sighed, the defense network he had set up wasn’t finished yet. It was meant to be complete with several Helicarrier classes, surface to space cannons, shields around major installations and cities, and orbital stations with long-range missiles. As of now, there were only a handful of Helicarriers built, and incomplete space stations. After the Avengers split, it was clear that they couldn’t be relied on for all threats, and even if they were still together, it wouldn’t be enough. There were even programs in the works for restarting the Super-Soldier program. “I hope we did enough. This was really bad timing.”

Fri hummed in agreement, “I imagine between what we have, the rest of the Avengers, and Wakanda, they should be able to hold out.”

“I hope you’re right,” Tony looked out in front of them, as the swirling blue mass moved past their field of vision.

A few hours later, Tony and Fri felt a jolt in the ship, and the view in front of them was replaced by a planet. It had dusty clouds, and several moons orbited. They were approaching the world fairly quickly, and Tony hoped at the back of his mind that their ship had a good heat shield. 

“Guys, we’re out of transit,” the other three looked up from their discussion, and got to their feet. Within a few minutes, the planet engulfed their view, and they were quickly approaching the atmosphere. “Peter, over there,” he said, pointing to a control, “we gotta land this ship in one piece, alright?” Peter nodded quickly, and planted his feet. Stephen cast a protective shield around them, and soon they were entering the exosphere. Plasma trails began to form in the view, and the entire ship was shaking.

“How long will this take?” Loki asked, Fri had latched herself to a side panel, and Loki was gripping onto her arm, trying not to bounce around the ship.

“I don’t know, reindeer ears, as long as it takes.” The plasma trails grew brighter and brighter, but soon, the ship stopped shaking as much, and all that was left was a reddish tint in front of them. They dipped below the clouds, and saw the surface for the first time. Massive, ancient structures littered the surface. The planet was in a state of decay, and the rusty look only helped to solidify that. Their ship was getting closer and closer to a broken arch, and Tony grunted as he tried to turn the ship.

“Turn, turn, turn,” Peter said quickly, in a panicked voice. His mask went up, and so did Tony’s. He grunted with the effort, and looked over at Peter for a quick second, who had his feet planted against the hull. Tony turned his attention back to the screen, where they were approaching the ground fast. 

“Brace for impact. Hold steady, kid” Tony called out. It was all he could do to keep the ship in one direction, but a jolt through the ship told him they were skidding across the surface. The sound of metal bending and snapping echoed through the ship, and he watched as the view began to tilt towards the ground, as if they were falling.

“Shit,” he said, when it impacted. There were rough vibrations going through his body, but soon enough, they slowed to a stop. The four of them panted heavily, as Fri checked for injuries.

“Is everyone alright? Tony asked. The others looked out of breath, but they nodded, “well, now that we’re out of transit, we can finally talk to Earth.”

Tony and Fri walked over to the others in the group, and he tapped his reactor. Part of his gauntlet opened up, and glowed, “this is the antenna to reach Earth,” Tony explained, he sent a signal the opposite direction they were going, as it took much less power than a sweeping signal. He sincerely hoped they couldn’t change course while going faster than light.

The speaker was filled with static for a moment until Steve’s voice came through, “Tony? Tony, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me Capsicle,” Tony said in a pained voice. Fri, and Peter looked around awkwardly, but didn’t say anything. Loki and Stephen just looked impassive.

“Where are you right now?”

“Don’t know, light years from home I guess, but that’s not important, we don’t have long to talk. Where are you?”

“On our way to Wakanda with Bruce and Vision. We’re hoping Shuri can remove the Mind stone without killing him.”

“Right, right.” Tony rubbed his goatee in thought, “well, unlike Fri, Vision’s structure is polymorphic. So you’ll need to reprogram the synapses to work collectively. Hopefully the Princess knows how to do that, but if she doesn’t,” and Tony went on to explain in short how to do it, “you can replay this for her if she doesn’t know, but that’s the best I can give you.”

“Thank you Tony,” Steve sounded relieved, “are you able to make it back?”

“Maybe, possibly. But we aren’t. We’re going to fight Thanos on our own terms. Stop him from getting to Earth, maybe buy you guys some time. I don’t know who he’s going to send. We’ve kinda trapped one of them, and killed another, so hopefully, there’s not many left you need to deal with.”

“Well, I’ll pass that along. It’s good to hear from you again.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, his voice cracked, “it’s good to hear you too. Look, we’re about out of time, be careful, expect anything.”

“Will do Tony, take care of yourself up there,” Steve said, before the connection cut out. 

Tony sighed, “hopefully that was enough.”

“And if it wasn’t?” Loki inquired.

“I really don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Already more than 10k words! That's crazy.  
Comments/Kudos appreciated!


	7. Steve

Steve walked back to the front of the Quinjet where the others were sitting, when he got back, Wanda was the first to stand, “What did Stark say?” She asked him. Vision stood up straighter.  


“He warned us, and told us how we may be able to get the stone off of Vision without killing him, or rendering him pre-sapient. Then it’s just a matter of getting enough time.”

“That’s good,” Sam called from the front, “we should be approaching Wakanda now,” he said.

Steve walked past Wanda, and leaned over Sam’s chair, “drop to twenty-six hundred, heading zero-three-zero.”

“I hope you’re right about this,” Sam said, lowering their altitude, and changing their direction slightly, “or we’re gonna be landing a lot faster than I’d like.”

Sam held his breath as they rapidly approached the treeline, the distance closed fast, and they passed harmlessly through the trees. The holograms flickered, and they were soon within the borders of Wakanda. Sam let himself breathe again.

“Drop down over there,” Steve pointed to a landing pad in the distance, near the Palace grounds. Sam tilted the jet to the right, and while he prepared for landing, Steve noticed several people walking out of the building, joined by the Dora Milaje.

“Alright, we’re here,” Steve said when they touched down. While Sam and the others unstrapped themselves, Nat opened the ramp to the bright African sun, and they followed her and Steve out.

“Seems I’m always thanking you for something,” Steve said, extending his hand to T’Challa, he smiled warmly, and faltered at something behind him.

“Oh, we don’t do that here,” T’challa said in accented English, Steve turned around to see Bruce, who had been bowing. He looked up at Rhodey, who was smirking next to him, and Steve shook his head fondly.

“Let’s not waste any time,” T’Challa said, leading them inside, “so how big of an assault should we expect?” He asked, Steve was about to speak, when Bruce cut in front of him.

“Uh, sir, sir, I think you should expect a very large assault.” T’Challa nodded.

“So, how are we looking?” Nat asked.

“You will have the King’s guard, the Border tribe, the Dora Milaje, and-” T’Challa gestured to Bucky, who was walking over to them.

“A semi-stable hundred year old man,” he finished for him.

“How’ve you been Buck?” Steve asked, embracing his best friend.

“Eh, not bad. For the end of the world,” he replied, flashing a smile.

“Princess, can you remove the stone from Vision’s head?” Steve asked. He was in Shuri’s lab with Wanda, Vision, T’Challa, and some of the Dora Milaje, including Okaye. They were discussing what they were going to do about Vision, and the city.

Shuri huffed, “of course I can, who do you think I am? The question is, can you give me enough time?”

Steve sighed in relief, “how much do you need?” He asked.

“As much as you can give me. A couple hours is preferable,” she said walking around her lab, “sit,” she told Vision, “we don’t have time to waste.” He obliged, and sat down in a chair.

Shuri brought up a hologram that pulled up Vision’s circuits, “interesting,” she said, “Your structure is polymorphic,” she said.

“Yes, he was created by a bunch of different entities,” Bruce explained.

Shuri nodded, “it makes sense. We’ll need to reprogram-”

“The synapses to work collectively?” Steve finished without thinking, Shuri looked at him with a look of approval.

“Yes, I didn’t know you were well versed in this area,” she said.

“I’m not,” Steve said, holding up a recorder, “It’s what Tony told me on the way here,” he handed it to her, “he wasn’t sure if you knew what to do, so he gave some brief instructions.”

Shuri nodded, “I’ll go over it. I understand he’s already created an Android from scratch, so he’ll be the expert in this case.”

“In the meantime,” Steve said, looking over at T’Challa, “how will we protect the city?”

“We will need to evacuate everyone, deploy all defensive measures, and round up all of our forces. I’ll send an emergency request to our warriors.” T’Challa said. Okaye’s kimoya beads beeped, and the hologram of a ship that looked like the one which landed in New York and Scotland appeared.

“Something is entering the atmosphere,” she said, as a couple smaller ships split off, and burned towards Earth.

“We don’t have any time to evacuate,” Steve said quietly, his mouth went dry, and he turned to T’Challa.

“Send out the emergency alarm to all civilians, tell them to get indoors, and underground,” he said to his kimoyo beads, “scramble the air force, and prepare all transport and support units to be deployed.”

Vision got out of his chair, and groaned, “we don’t have any more time. We need to destroy the stone.”

“Get your ass back on the table,” Nat said without looking at him, “we’re not doing anything useful lounging around here, we can plan and talk. Shuri, get the stone off of him.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replied, quickly getting to work.

“And Wanda?” Started Steve, before he left, “as soon as that stone is out of his head, you blow it to hell.”

“I will,” she said. Her hands glowed red for a moment. And Steve nodded at her.

“Uh Cap?” Came Sam’s voice through Steve’s earpiece.

“Yeah?” He replied, opening the connection.

“We’ve got a situation. Two ships, headed for the dome.”

Steve turned to T’Challa, “two ships approaching.” He pulled up the hologram of the ships in question, and T’Challa scoffed.

“They won’t make it through,” he said confidently.

“And there’s several more landing outside the city,” said Steve after Sam’s next report, T’Challa’s look of confidence was replaced with one of worry. 

“Now that’s a problem,” T’Challa replied, he tapped the head-piece of his traditional necklace, and his Black Panther suit replaced his royal robes. He turned to one of the Dora Milaje, and pointed at Steve, “get this man a shield. The woman nodded, and walked away towards the armory.

“We’ll need to set up a perimeter outside the city,” Steve said, walking beside him, “keep them from getting closer.”

“We have a shield Captain.” T’Challa reminded him.

“But how long will it hold?” Steve asked, glancing over. T’Challa considered this.

“We can set up makeshift bastions outside,” he said, “shields over the top to protect from anything in the air, and several of our energy cannons to defend and break rank. Infantry warriors can defend it from the outside, and we can provide medics to anyone nearby,” T’Challa said, Steve nodded.

They turned a corner, and walked down a wide hall, where warriors were marching down to the transport units. Steve looked outside to the city, where civilians were out on the streets, running in panic.

“We have never had a situation like this before, and even drills cannot prepare us for something we have never dealt with.” T’Challa said, looking out at the city as well.

“I just hope we aren’t turning them into fish in a barrel.” Steve said, remembering New York.

“I hope so too.”

Steve and T’Challa continued working out the strategy, and went outside to meet up with the other Avengers, Wakandan tribe leaders like M’Baku, military leaders, and officials, when several more ships descended from the atmosphere.

“What are those?” Steve asked, they looked different than the others, but familiar to him. When he realized what they were, his eyes went wide, “They’re Chitauri,” he said.

“Well, looks like we’re about to get a blast from the past.” Nat said, looking up as well. “But hey, all we need to do is destroy the mothership, and we’re good to go, right?”

“The mothership is in space,” T’Challa said, “and there’s several of them. We can’t touch them from here. We haven’t had enough time since we revealed ourselves to establish a space program.”

“Wait,” said Rhoedy, who looked between them, “what kind of orbit are they in?” He asked.

“Medium Earth orbit, maybe three thousand kilometers.” said T’Challa. “Why?”

Rhodey’s face fell, “shit, that’s too far up,” He said, lifting a hand to the side of his helmet. “I was going to tell the UN to launch some Nukes up at them, but that’s off the table.” He paused for a few moments, “I just messaged the Avengers compound, told them to launch several support units from one of our defense platform in orbit. Should give us an edge.” He said.

“Any help would be welcome, but is there any way to destroy the motherships?” T’Challa asked. Several Wakandan officials looked nervously at Rhodey.

“No,” said Rhodey, “None that I know of. We’re going to be fighting an uphill battle here,” he said, then his face turned thoughtful, “but, nuclear missiles would help to create EMP bursts and destroy anything more coming down. It’s just a stopgap though.”

Steve nodded grimly, “Then we’ll hold as long as we need to. Keeping these civilians safe, and destroying the stone should be our highest priorities,” he turned to T’Challa, who nodded, and stepped aside, “I want anyone in the air near the barrier, and all ground units to give us as much space between them and the city as is possible. Set up chokepoints, and medic tents. We should send in some units in to help with evacuation, but we need as many people on defense as possible,” he said to the military leaders around them. They nodded, and got to work.

Steve began walking towards the city with some of the others to help with evacuation efforts, but turned back to Rhodey, “figure out a way to destroy those motherships.”


	8. Quill II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guardians vs. Avengers fight in the perspective of the Guardians!

“Alright, we’re nearly there,” said Peter, dipping the Benatar into the atmosphere of Titan, “the Black Order will be here, so don’t underestimate them,” he said. Peter was worried, they were down three people now, and Mantis wasn’t really a fighter. If she couldn’t put her enemy to sleep in time, well, he didn’t want to think about that.

“The Q-ship looks like it’s preparing for landing,” he told them, tracking its descent.

“We will kill the Black Order where they stand.” said Drax. “Today, we will avenge my family.” Peter nodded at him.

“And get Gamora back,” he finished.

“Huh, that’s odd,” Peter said a few minutes later.

“What?” Asked Mantis.

“The Q-ship isn’t bringing itself down to hover. Their ship must be damaged, or even the Black Order themselves,” Peter grinned, “this means an easier time for us.” He brought his ship down to a gentle landing, and the three of them went outside.

“Alright, we aren’t going in without a plan,” said Peter, turning to Drax and Mantis, “we need to take them by surprise. They can’t know we’re here, or they’ll slaughter us. Attack quickly, and don’t give them time to hit back. Mantis, go up from behind, that’s your best option,” she nodded, “Drax, you and me, we’ll take them down one by one,” Drax grinned.

Peter led them across the barren landscape, all around them were the ruins of a highly advanced, but ancient city. When they were in view of the Q-ship, the three of them hit behind rocks and ruins to avoid being seen, “we’ll probably need to cut a hole in the side of the ship,” he muttered, “thankfully, Rocket’s stash is perfect for times like these,” before they went outside, Peter took some of Rocket’s weapons to try and give them an edge.

“Damn, they really did a number on it,” Peter said when they got to the hull of the ship. It was beaten and damaged. Parts of the ship had broken off entirely, and landed some distance away, “I hope whoever’s in here is incapacitated.” He said just before starting the hole.

When they finally broke into the ship, Peter went into high alert. He motioned them to follow him, and led them down the main gangway, and through massive chambers, “okay,” he said quietly, “I’m starting to hear voices, keep your guard up, and stick to me,” he told them. Peter raised his blaster, and slowly walked to wherever the voices came from.

When they were close enough to see who they were dealing with, on a platform overlooking the control panel, Peter became confused, “that doesn’t look like any Black Order member,” he said to himself. There were five people standing together talking. Well, four standing. The fifth was hanging by something upside down. And none of them looked dangerous, except the fifth, who looked fully armored.

Peter turned to the others, “they outnumber us almost two to one. We definitely need to storm them while their guard is down,” Drax nodded in agreement, he quietly unsheathed his swords, and Peter held three fingers up. One by one they went down, and when he closed his hand into a fist, they went to work.

Peter threw a small bomb to disorient them, and let Drax led the charge, “Thanos!” He yelled in a cry. Peter and Mantis quickly followed him in, but Drax was taken down by what looked like a flying cape.

One of the men who looked harmless, had a flying red armor encased around his body within seconds, which, while impressive, had one big disadvantage. He threw one of his electro-magnet clusters at him, and it stuck him to the hull.

Mantis snuck up behind one of the Black Order members who was making replicas of himself, and she quickly found the real one. In a second, he was asleep, “one down, four to go,” he muttered, turning to the next one.

Peter shot a charge at the Android, and they went down with a scream. The armored man - Cyborg? - yelled out her name. Friday. It struck him as vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place why. The man broke free, and flew after Peter, who went to the air himself, launching decoys to distract him.

Below Peter, Drax was trying to subdue the man who could cast shields, while Mantis tried to put the weird fifth guy to sleep, but something came out of their wrists, trapping her. Peter felt a rush of fear and anger, so he flew down, and shot a charge to shock him, “stay down Clown,” he snarled. Peter landed next to him, and picked the man up, leveling the blaster to his head.

“Alright, stay where you are! Chill the f out.” Peter said. He looked around, and realized how quickly he was losing control of the situation. “I’m going to ask you this one time,” he said, addressing the man in red armor, “where is Gamora?”

“Yeah, I’ll do you one better, who’s Gamora?” Asked the man, who retracted his helmet, but didn’t lower the hand aimed at Drax’s head.

“I’ll do you one better, why is Gamora?” Peter looked at him confused, as did several of the Black Order.

“Tell me where she is, or I swear to you, I’m gonna french fry this little freak.”

“Let’s do it,” said the man in what sounded like panic.  _ Good _ , Peter thought. “You blast my guy, and I’ll blast him, let’s go,” he said, and his hand morphed into a massive blaster.

“Do it Quill, I can take it,” Drax said, staring it in the face.

“No, he can’t take it,” Mantis said, hopping around, the Android had recovered, and had their arm around her, keeping Mantis from doing much else.

“You’re right, he can’t,” the man with orange shields said. And Peter felt another wave of fear.

“It’s alright,” Peter said with false swagger, “I’ll just kill all three of you and beat it outta Thanos myself, starting with you,” he said to the man he had in his grip.

“Wait, Thanos?” The man with the orange shields asked, “let me ask you this one time, which master do you serve?”

Peter snorted, “ which master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?”

The man with the red armor moved his blaster a bit, “you’re from Earth,” he said as a matter of fact. And Peter wanted to say yes, but it didn’t sound quite right.

“I’m not from Earth, I’m from Missouri.”

“Yeah, that’s on Earth, dipshit, what’re you hassling us for?”

“So you’re not with Thanos?” The weird guy asked in a voice that sounded way too small.

“With Thanos? No,” he said, lowering his blaster, “I want to kill Thanos, wait who are you?” The man he was gripping retracted his helmet.

“We’re the Avengers man,” he said, Peter sighed, and let him go. The man Mantis put to sleep stood up, and got into a fighting stance, while the rest lowered their weapons, and Mantis spoke up.

“You’re the ones Thor told us about,” she said.

The armored man went wide-eyed for a moment, “wait, you know Thor?”

“Thor’s alive?” Asked the Man who was still gripping his daggers.

“Yeah, tall guy, not that good looking, needed saving.” They laughed, and lowered their daggers.

“Where is he now,” the man with the orange shields inquired.

Peter led the people claiming to be Avengers on his ship, they agreed they weren’t enemies, and while Peter didn’t fully trust them, they would be a fair bit of help against Thanos.

“Thor went with a couple members of my team to craft a weapon to kill Thanos,” Peter explained, “I don’t know where he is now, but he said he was going to Nidavellir,”

“The forge,” one of the men said. “Of course.”

“So is Mjolnir not enough?” The armored red man asked.

“Mjolnir was destroyed,” the man answered, and the armored man looked in shock, “Thor still has his powers, but my guess is he’s trying to amplify them. Enough to stand up to Thanos.”

“Well, that’s great,” Peter said, “I suppose we should learn each other’s names?”

The weird guy piped up first, “my name is Peter, Peter Parker” Quill looked at him, and all the remaining anger he had vanished in an instant as he grinned at him.

“Really? My name’s Peter too!” Parker beamed at Quill.

“That’s so cool! What’re the odds of that?” He asked excitedly.

“I have no idea,” Quill laughed, “but it’s nice to know my name is still kicking around.”

The red armored man looked between them in exasperation, and he sighed, “Peter,” both of them looked at him, and he sighed louder, “my Peter. He just held a gun to your head, and you’re best buddies because you share a name?”

“Why not Mr. Stark?” Parker asked, “It was just a misunderstanding,” he said with a wave of his hand. Quill grinned and threw an arm around Parker’s shoulder while Mr. Stark facepalmed.

“I’m Loki, the brother of Thor,” said the one who could duplicate himself.

“Dr. Strange,” said the one with the orange shields.

“Friday,” said the Android.

“Why does that name sound so familiar?” Quill asked her.

“Because it’s a day of the week,” Parker answered, “and that’s just what Mr. Stark named her.” Quill nodded.

“And I’m Tony Stark,” Tony said, retracting his red armor, “so, Thanos, let’s focus on that.” He said with a serious expression. Quill nodded, and walked over to the front of the ship.

“Right now, there are Chitauri and Outrider forces making their way to Xandar, the Capital world of Nova Prime. The planet is being evacuated,” Tony looked at him in shock, “and it’s also where the Power stone is being protected.”

Tony looked at him with a start, “so that’s where we go,” Tony said, “we have the Time stone, it’s how we got onto Ebony Maw’s ship-”

“Ebony Maw?” Quill exclaimed, “he’s one of the worst Black Order members.

“Well, we killed him,” said Tony dismissively, Quill stared at him in shock. Maybe they would be more useful than he thought.

“How?” He asked, “it must’ve taken quite the plan to pull that off, very few would have outsmarted him,” he said. Parker looked away, blushing a furious red, and Tony laughed.

“It’s not important,” Parker mumbled, he looked mortified.

“Well, what about going to Xandar?” Tony asked, the hint of a smile still on his face.

“Right, I’ll go send them a message, tell them we’re on our way with some help. In the meantime, I can teach you everything you need to know about the Chitauri and Outriders,” Quill said.

“I don’t think we need any info on the Chitauri, we’ve already dealt with them once, and my armor borrowed a bunch of tech from it,” Tony said. Quill fumbled, and looked at him for a moment.

“Earth was attacked?” He asked.

Tony furrowed his brow, “yeah, like six years ago,” Quill looked confused, “did no one out here know about it?”

“Primitive worlds are only checked up on a few times a century,” Quill said, “last time someone was sent there was around twenty years ago or so. And Earth tech was still staggeringly behind.”

“Well, we’ve done a lot in those twenty years,” Tony said, sitting down in what was Gamora’s chair. Quill gave him a pained look, and turned away.

Quill walked up to the comms panel, and patched a call to Xandar. “Hello Rael, we’re on our way to Xandar with the TIme stone, we’re coming to help.”

The speaker was silent for a few moments, before a familiar voice came through, “the Time stone? That has been lost for millenia!” Came her voice over the speaker.

“Well, apparently, it’s been controlled by humans for that time on Earth. I have several humans and an Asguardian with me,” Quill said, Loki didn’t bother correcting him, “we’ll be there soon.”

“Humans? That’s strange. Thank you Quill, our forces are getting thinned out, I fear we won’t be able to evacuate everyone.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Quill said. He turned it off, and turned to the others, “strap in, let’s go.” They all took their seats, and he helped make sure they were secured before heading out.

Quill finished strapping in, and accelerated the ship to a point in space, “reaching the jump point, in three, two, one.”


	9. Gamora II

Gamora panted as she began her ascent on the mountain to the Soul stone. She and Thanos hadn’t talked much while going over the shallow river, but she knew this may be her last chance to persuade him from his goal.

“What made you begin conquering planets?” She asked, looking him in the eye. She didn’t know much about his history, she realized. He told her very little aside from his ultimate goal, and focused on moving closer to that, she hoped there would be something she could use.

Thanos seemed taken aback by the question, but answered a moment later, “back on my homeworld, as you know, our ecosystem had become unstable. We relied too much on our technology, on our wasteful lifestyles, and we neglected the planet, assuming it would be fine,” he told her, walking up beside her, “I saw that it would only be a matter of time before it fully collapsed, and our food source would soon go down with it. And it did.” Gamora looked at him, searching his face for answers, hoping for anything that she could reach.

“For decades, we were able to grow our food, again, relying on technology. But the ecosystem was dead, very little grew, and pollutants slowly began accumulating from various sources,” he said. They reached a steep path, and Gamora stumbled on a loose rock that fell to the ground below, “careful, little one,” he told her. She glared at the ground, and walked ahead of him.

Thanos sighed, and started again, “I knew it wouldn’t be long before even that failed, so I proposed a solution. Kill half the population at random, and use the newly acquired space to rebuild the ecosystem. They called me a madman, made me an outcast. So when they were suddenly thrust into war, I did nothing to help. The enemy targeted their reactors, their farms. And within days, they lost the means to grow their food with technology, and lacked an ecosystem to grow it naturally. With billions to feed, infighting and extinction soon killed all of them. My race went all but extinct except for me, and several small colonies.” She looked at him in horror.

“And the colonies did nothing to help?” She asked.

“They couldn’t have done much, the damage was done.” Thanos replied, turning on the path. There was a metallic blade, rusted, against the cliff face. She wondered how long it had been there.

“So why half the Universe?” She asked, walking carefully up a path made of loose gravel.

“To limit the waste of resources and balance the Universe-” Thanos started.

“I know this,” she said stopping on the path and turning to him, “but that won’t work,” she looked at him pleadingly, “you know the Universe will just repopulate to normal soon enough, so why kill them at all. Isn’t there anything else you can do?”

“I’ve killed hundreds of billions in all my years of conquest,” Thanos said, “and seeing what happened afterward made the solution clear. The Universe needs to be reminded that it’s finite, that life is precious. Many of the people on worlds I sieged ended up dying out, many receded even further than they had been before. But some prospered. Became more conservative with their resources, valued what people they had left, and taught it to future generations. That’s what I want to teach the Universe.”

“Mass genocide,” Gamora said, tears welled up in her eyes, “you want to teach everyone that life is precious by killing half of them.”

“I know it’s hard to understand-”

“No, it’s not hard to understand,” Gamora said, rounding on him, “It’s impossible. It’s despicable. You claim it will work, you claim that what you do is mercy, but it’s not. It’s evil. Why couldn’t you use your world as a warning? Or create technology to help planets instead of berserking them?”

“Because soon enough, they forget, or they ignore, and say it couldn’t happen to them. They remain ignorant.”

She stared at him for a long time, and realized something, “what really happened, in the war which wiped out your planet?” She asked in a shaky voice.

“I didn’t help them fight back,” Thanos said again.

“No, why did they target the reactors and farms?” She asked, walking down to him, “did they know about their vulnerability, or did you tell the ones who attacked?”

Thanos stared at her for a few moments, “I told them. I waited to see if they would recover, but they didn’t. They died pathetically, barely a whimper.” Gamora took a few heavy breaths, and walked back up the mountain.

Soon they began approaching the top, and Gamora’s fear turned into panic, “please don’t do this,” she said, “there has to be another way.”

“There is no other way,” Thanos said, “And when I accomplish my goal, I will be remembered as a savior.”

Gamora looked at him in disbelief, with one word running through her mind,  _ madman _ .


	10. Tony III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late update today. It took a little longer to write, and there were things I needed/wanted to change first.

“We’re nearly there,” Quill said to everyone. After almost half an hour travelling at FTL, they were approaching Xandar. The ship, Benatar, as they were told it was called, was playing Earth music from its speakers. I’ll be Around by the Spinners. Tony thought Quill could be immature at times, but he had good taste.

“So where did this song come from?” Tony asked appreciatively. He was going through all his subsystems, and prototyping weapons that may be useful for them. The music reminded him of being in his lab.

Quill smiled sadly, “Yondu, he got me a Zune. It was his last gift to me. And this was the song I sung to Gamora before we finally got together.”

Tony nodded, “I’m sorry about Yondu. But we’ll get Gamora back,” Quill nodded at him, but he didn’t meet his eyes, “will we be talking to anyone, or just get right in the fighting?” He asked, changing the subject.

“I think they want to see you,” Quill replied, shifting in his seat, “humans with an infinity stone is odd to them, plus, what you know may be important to fighting Thanos.”

He waved away his holographic HUD, and turned around to Parker, who was sitting in a chair behind him, and Mantis, who was singing along, “how’re you doing kid?”

Parker, who was staring past them out the front window, jumped a little, and grinned sheepishly, “I’m great, Mr. Stark, really. It’s just a little overwhelming.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, “I agree. Just focus on a smaller picture. Saving your neighborhood, or the aliens here” Parker nodded, and Tony noticed he was shaking a little. He frowned, “are you sure you’re okay, kid?”

“Yeah, just really nervous. I was supposed to go on a field trip today, and now-” Parker said letting his voice trail off.

Tony laughed a little, “in a way, we’re on the ultimate field trip. But I get it, if you need to sit out, just say the word.”

Parker sat up a little straighter, “I’m not getting benched Mr. Stark, I can’t just sit out and watch people get hurt.”

Tony nodded, “I get it kid, just try not to bite off more than you can chew,” he said gently. Parker nodded.

Mantis looked between them, “you know, I’m an empath. I can sense and influence emotions, so maybe I could make you feel calmer.” she said.

“Really?” Parker looked at her, with some eagerness and relief in his tone, “that would be great.”

“You can try it later,” Quill said, “for now, we need to get down to the surface,” he said, pulling them out of FTL.

The view outside went from stars streaking across the windows to being above the planet Xandar. Tony noticed it looked remarkably like Earth, with bright blue oceans, green plants, and so on, but the continents and oceans were all the wrong places and sizes, so it messed with his head.“It looks beautiful,” said Parker, and Tony was inclined to agree.

“Doesn’t look like much is going on down there,” Tony commented to Quill.

“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving,” Quill said as they approached the planet, “we were given a pass to go down to the surface, but most ships are barred from entering.” He pressed a few buttons and static crackled through a speaker somewhere, “this is Peter Quill with the Guardians, we’re about to enter the atmosphere,” he said.

“You’re cleared for landing,” came somebody’s voice, “you may land outside of the city, we have a secure location for your ship.”

“Thank you Nova Corps, see you in a bit,” said Quill as he tilted the Benatar into the atmosphere. Plasma trails soon started streaking across the windows, and it got louder in the ship with every second. Soon, it quieted down, and Tony felt a little kick as the engines accelerated them. When they started flying close enough to see the city in the distance, they knew then how dire it was.

“Holy shit,” Tony muttered. There were Leviathan’s releasing Chitauri soldiers, and their levitating crafts swarming the skies, “why aren’t you destroying their mothership?” Tony asked, turning to Quill.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging, “I guess we’ll find out when we-” Quill swore, and jerked the Benatar into a spin, “sorry!” He said to everyone. Quill shot a few Chitauri out of the sky, and turned to them, “probably should’ve seen that coming,” he said, laughing a little. He shot down some more of their crafts, and quickly brought the plane down to their designated landing site.

“Alright, c’mon everyone, don’t have time to waste,” Tony said when they landed, walking to the back with Quill. He pressed a button near the back, and a ramp lowered. Outside, several aliens were waiting for him. They all looked human to Tony, and wore deep blue uniforms.

“Hello Rael,” said Quill, gesturing behind him, “these are the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes,” Tony frowned at the tone of that last part but didn’t say anything.

“Humans,” she said curiously, “I wasn’t aware you knew about Galactic affairs.”

“We don’t, ,” Tony said, “we only know of the Chitauri after they attacked our world.” Rael looked shocked for a moment. “Other than that, there isn’t much we know.”

“Chitauri attacked your world?” She asked.

“Well, yeah,” Tony glanced at Quill, “he said you didn’t know about it because you don’t check up on primitive worlds. But that’s besides the point, is the Power stone still safe?”

“You are in no position to make that question,” someone said besides her. He was tall, and well built with a sour look on his face.

“Why not?” Tony asked, “I think it’s in our best interest to come up with a plan to prevent Thanos from getting the stones.”

The man laughed, “and what do you think you can do? You’re just a human. I’m a Commander for the Nova Corps, what are you?”

“Earth’s greatest Defender,” said Tony, walking up to him, “and someone who has personally fought aside and against gods, aliens, and robots.” Tony eyed him up and down, “you look comfortable. Have you ever done anything outside of a simulation or a bunker?” The Commander gave Tony an ugly look.

“I’m aware you have the Time stone?” Rael said quickly, evidently trying to diffuse the situation.

“Yes,” said Stephen, “I do,” he opened the eye-shaped amulet he had, and revealed it to them.

“You should hand that over, to put under our protection,” the Commander said. Stephen shook his head.

“I don’t think so, it’s going back to Earth once this is over. Tony is right, we should be coming up with a plan.”

“We don’t need a plan from you, we have the greatest military in the galaxy, and soon, we’ll destroy the Chitauri motherships, and prepare for Thanos’ arrival.”

“Good luck,” Tony said sarcastically, “Thanos already has two stones, three if he ends up getting the Soul stone, which is what he’s doing right now, and the only reason he isn’t riding up on your doorstep about to own the place.”

“But I don’t see how you can help against him,” said Rael skeptically.

“We have a god,” Tony gestured to Loki, “and one of the stones,” he said, gesturing to Stephen, “among other useful attributes,” he said, referring to Fri, Peter, and Stephen again, “I think we can do quite a bit together.”

“We’re also the last line of defense,” blurted out Parker. Tony turned to him.

“What?” asked Rael.

“We’re the last line of defense,” he repeated, plainer, “Dr. Strange, what can the time stone do?” He asked, turning to him.

“It can create time loops, allow you to rewind recent events, among other things,” he replied, looking thoughtful.

“Exactly,” said Parker, looking back at the Commander, “and we’re now protecting the power stone on top of that. If Thanos comes here and decides to just take it, he could grab the stone, and burn right through everyone. If he gets the time stone, he’ll be able to rewind any victories we gain. So in short, if he gets the power stone, we’re dead, and if he gets the time stone, we’ve lost. So stop bickering, and figure out a plan.” He told Tony and the Commander. Tony nodded, while the Commander scowled.

“Humans barking orders at us, who do you think you are?”

“That’s enough Rynn,” she said, turning to the Commander in question, “what did you have in mind?” She asked Tony, though with a hint of skepticism.

“We need to get the Gauntlet off of Thanos, if we do that, he’s still ridiculously strong, but he no longer has power over us. We’ll need to subdue him long enough to take it off.”

“Mantis can do that,” Quill said, nodding at her, “she subdued a Celestial for a time,” he said with a look of awkwardness, “she should be able to subdue Thanos too.”

“That’s good,” Tony said, without the faintest idea of what a Celestial was, “perfect actually. We just need to catch him by surprise. Peter, Fri, and I should also be strong enough combined to hold him down, and pull it off.”

Rynn sighed, “then I guess you’ll need armor,” he said, nodding to one of the men on the side watching them with interest. They walked out of sight, and came back with full-body armor. It was white, with blue and gold highlights. When Tony got a good look at it, he laughed.

Rynn looked scandalized, “why are you laughing? You should be proud to wear our armor on the battlefield.”

“It’s not that,” Tony said, “I don’t need it, and it’s not really my style.”

“So you’re going to fight aliens like that,” Rynn said mockingly, “I wasn’t aware humans liked to brush with death.”

“We don’t typically, but in this case, I have armor of my own.” Tony pulled down the straps of his shirt, and tapped the reactor. He wore a smug look on his face when the nanobots spilled out over him, “meet the Mark L, my most advanced suit.” Rynn and Rael, as well as anyone else watching looked shocked.

“Humans already have that level of technology?” Rael asked.

“Basically, but this isn’t just a nanotech armor. It’s stocked with energy weapons, nanobot extensions, missiles, and near hypersonic flight up to the upper atmosphere.”

“That thing can fly?” Rynn asked.

In response, Tony hovered above them, “it’s honestly kind of funny you guys don’t seem to employ this tech. So versatile. Plus, I tricked it out with tech I reverse-engineered from the Chitauri. Energy core capacitors, enhanced energy beams, stronger alloys, the works. All powered by my miniature arc reactor. Fri basically has the same capabilities,” he said, nodding to her, “So, any more questions? Or can we get to work?”

Quill smirked up at him, “I’ll call up Kraglin and the other Ravagers who came, they can help destroy the motherships.”

“The motherships have escorts,” Rynn said, “you’ll need numerous ships to fight back.”

“We have them,” Quill said, “you can focus your craft on-world.”

“And until Thanos gets here,” Tony said, “we can help with evacuations.” Rael nodded.

“That would be very helpful, thank you,” she said, she looked around at them, and frowned, “what’s he doing?” She asked. Tony turned to Stephen, who was floating above the air. The amulet was open, revealing the stone, and he looked odd. They stared at him for a few minutes before he snapped awake, and fell. Tony rushed forward to catch him.

“What was that all about, Strange?”

Stephen looked at everyone, “I looked into the future, and found each possible timeline to view the coming conflict.”

Tony felt his breath catch, “how many did you see?”

“Fourteen million, six hundred and five,” he said, Tony’s eyes widened.

“How many did we win?” Rynn asked.

Stephen looked at him, “one.”

“One?” Tony asked, “seriously? That can’t be all of them.” Tony said, a sense of dread grew in his stomach, were the odds really that low?

“Well, I can’t see past my own death, so there could be up to thousands of scenarios where we also win. And there’s scenarios I saw where we only partially won. But I don’t have time to teach you how to use the stone to view the rest, so yes. One solution. One way where we come out on top.”

“What is it?” Quill asked.

Stephen shook his head, “I can’t give all the details, if I say too much, it won’t happen. But Tony has the right idea, we just need to change a couple things,” he said, going on to explain the modified plan to them. When he was done, they walked outside, except for Rael, who would oversee from inside.

“Follow me,” Rynn said, “I’ll direct you to where you need to go,” he told them, while Quill went back towards the Benatar, leaving the rest to help with evacuations. Rynn opened the bunker to a warzone. People - aliens - ran out in front of them, terrified. Children’s toys and clothes with blood were laying on the ground abandoned, and there were bodies littering the streets.

“I can be much more useful in the air, Commander,” Tony said, feeling an immense amount of hatred to the Chitauri, “I can take down those Leviathan’s and their levitating craft easily enough.” Rynn considered this for a moment, and nodded at him. Tony turned to Parker, “play it safe kid, and stay in that gray area, and Fri,” he said turning to her, “you can come with me.” The nanotech helmet went over his face, and the two of them blasted off to make their way towards the Leviathan’s.

“Well, PLATO, I know you weren’t around for New York, so let me tell you about my recreation of Jonah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that I got the Zune reference right, I couldn't find the exact scene on You Tube, and it seems correct to me.


	11. Bruce/Hulk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a shorter chapter, but I wanted to give Bruce some time, and begin setting up Professor Hulk

Bruce wasn’t a fighter, Hulk was. He didn’t have the skill, or the prowess, or the will to fight. It’s why he hated Hulk so much, because it didn’t seem he wanted to do anything  _ but  _ fight.

And now, after running from it for so long, while aliens were attacking; he actually wanted to this time. But Hulk wasn’t coming out. And now he was running through the streets of Wakanda helping people evacuate.

“Bruce! Is the Hulk out yet?” Came Steve’s voice from his comms, he was helping at the edge of the city, getting people ready to fight or go underground, and Bruce could hear the sound of weapons fire over the static.

“No, Steve,” said Bruce, panting. He directed a young girl and her parents to an underground cellar. She dropped her toy, and Bruce picked it up before it could become trampled on and gave it back to her. She thanked him, and gripped onto it like a lifeline, “I told you, he doesn’t want to.”

“Well, what are you gonna do?” He asked. Bruce checked the Kimoyo beads the Princess gave him to locate bunkers and safe areas in the city.

“Continue helping people evacuate, it’s all I can do,” he said, leading a few more families to the same cellar. “Here,” he said to them, “you’ll be safe,” he told them in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.

Bruce looked around him, there was shouting and screaming in the distance, and the roads still had families running through. There was trash and abandoned personal items strewn everywhere, and he noticed another doll, like the one the little girl had. He hoped whoever owned it was okay.

He sighed, and took a swig of water given to him by one of the Wakandan medics, and went to another street. He caught a glimpse of the battlefield, there were Chitauri ships shooting at the shield, and explosions near it. Bruce put a finger to his earpiece, “hey Cap, what’s going on?”

“The Chitauri are trying to break down the shields,” Steve said, in heavy breaths, he sounded like he was fighting, “we’re getting the air force ready to fight them outside before they can.” Bruce looked at the Chitauri ships, and shuddered, if they broke down the shields, there would be almost nothing protecting the families and people still outside.

He ran across streets, and led people with him to bunkers which still had room, and checked his Kimoyo beads again. There were red dots on too many of them. The bunkers were getting full quickly, and he was running out of time, “Steve, how long until they break through the shields?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve said a few moments later, “soon though, their weapons are starting to overload the shield’s capacitors.”

“Dammit,” Bruce said when Steve disconnected. He punched himself a few times, and felt anger rush up in his chest, “come on Hulk, we need to help-”

“No,” Hulk roared. Bruce’s eyes rolled back, and he stumbled. The people around them looked scared of him, and backed away.

“It’s fine,” Bruce said, breathing heavily, “let’s get you to the bunkers,” they followed him, but at more of a distance this time. Then there was an explosion, and it all went to hell, “run!” Bruce was yelling, “get under cover!” Chitauri craft swarmed in the distance, and got past the air force to go straight towards the city. Bruce looked up and saw the shield fade away.

Dozens of crafts were approaching them, and Bruce got desperate, “please Hulk, you don’t need to fight for me, just protect them,” he said, looking at the faces of the terrified people and families. Hulk roared, and Bruce finally felt the familiar sensation of losing control. This time, it was bliss.

“Fine!” Hulk yelled. He emerged from Banner, and roared at the sky to any Chitauri listening. One daring craft flew down towards him, and opened fire, so Hulk jumped up, and slammed it into the ground, “go,” he told the Wakandan’s in a grunt, “Hulk protects you,” he turned back to where the Chitauri were heading, and bounded over buildings to get there before the Chitauri could. 

Hulk threw them, smashed them, and when he could, held onto people, and brought them to safer places. Hulk felt good, he wasn’t fighting for the Avengers, or for entertainment, or for Bruce, he was fighting for himself, for other people. He finally got to show that he wasn’t a monster used only for violence.

Hulk jumped from one of the towering skyscrapers the Wakandan’s had to leap on unsuspecting Chitauri, and hit the ground so hard, it made the nearby buildings shake. An Outrider ran through the streets, and Hulk punched it into the ground before throwing its corpse back to the battlefield.

“Hulk,” he turned, and looked towards the person. It was Steve, one of Bruce’s puny friends.

“What?” he growled.

“We need your help out there-”

“No.” Hulk said, sitting down with a thud.

“No? What?” Steve asked, he was breathing heavily.

“Hulk won’t fight,” he said, pointing to the battlefield, “Hulk protects,” he said, pointing at the people cowering under a makeshift shelter. 

Steve seemed to understand and nodded. “Okay, Hulk protects,” he reassured him, before running back. Hulk smiled, happy he could finally make his own decisions. He stood back up, and began fighting stray Outriders and Chitauri with new vigor. Some of the Chitauri shot at a building, causing debris to fall, and Hulk saved some people below from getting crushed.

“Puny human doesn’t smash, Hulk smashes,” he said in a low rumble, and carried them gently to one of the shelters. He grabbed an abandoned cart, and threw it at the Chitauri, causing them to crash into a building, Hulk laughed, and ran down the streets to deal with a small pack of Outriders.


	12. Tony IV

“Hey Quill, how’s it looking up there?” Tony asked, flying through another Leviathan. He and Fri had gone through dozens by now, slicing through them like butter, and helping to take out their soldiers.

“Not good,” he replied. “We've got over half a dozen motherships spread out here, and their escorts-” Quill cut out for a second, “pain in my ass!” He finished, making Tony jump.

“Get back down here, we need a new plan,” Tony said, there were a few Leviathan’s in front of him, and he got to work on taking them down.

When Tony saw the Benatar streaking through the sky, he flipped in the air, and made his way to Quill’s ship. He flew up to the window, and radioed Quill, “open the back, so you don’t need to land,” he said. Tony let the Benatar fly ahead a little, and gently landed inside.

“How bad is it up there?” He asked, letting his helmet retract, he got in the pilot seat in the cockpit and strapped in.

“Bad, too many damned escorts are protecting it, I can’t get close enough,” Quill replied, shooting down multiple Chitauri crafts.

“What kind of weapons do they have?” Asked Tony.

“Plenty of large, static weapons,” said Quill, “why?”

“Hard to turn, mostly meant for larger ships?” Asked Tony hopefully.

“Yeah, yeah, what’re you thinking?” Quill shot a quick look at him.

“I can volley a couple missiles at them, my armor is small. If you can keep them occupied, I can get in and out pretty quickly. Can your ship handle an explosion at mid-range?”

“It should,” said Quill grinning, “but can your suit work in space?”

“For a short time, yeah. But we’ll need some help.”

“I can take care of that,” said Quill, he opened up a channel, “hey Kraglin, gather up all your ships. We’re gonna ambush the motherships.”

“Do you guys have any nukes?” Tony asked.

“No, nothing like that, we have antimatter missiles though, and they can pack a real punch.”

“Antimatter? You just have antimatter missiles casually on your ships? Okay,” said Tony shaking his head a little in disbelief.

“Hey, our ships are powered by antimatter. Missiles aren’t that out of the ordinary,” Quill said, shooting at a small wave of Chitauri, “though we don’t have a lot, and their yield is limited. But what’s our role? We keep the escorts occupied, you hop out the back, and we get outta there?”

“That’s about it,” Tony said, he radioed the others, “hey everyone, Quill and I are gonna take out the motherships. Keep evacuating civilians. Tell us if anything changes.”

“Will do, Stark,” said Loki, “and get to it, these pests are annoying me.”

“Now you know how we felt,” Tony quipped. “Hey Fri,” he said.

“Yes, Tony?” She replied, “I just took down one of the Leviathan’s.”

“Get up here, we might be able to pull double duty if we split up.” He said.

“Alright, I’ll come up to you,” He nodded to Quill, and he redirected the ship to get to Fri, when she was onboard, he shot through the atmosphere back to space.

“Rendezvous with the Ravager ships soon, some will split off with Fri, while we do the same” Quill said a few minutes later, looking at Tony, “I hope you’re right about this.”

“I do too,” Tony replied, “just open the missile bay, and release it for me to carry. Can you fire it remotely?”

“Sure can, be pretty pathetic if we couldn’t.”

When they got to space the Ravagers were waiting for them, shooting down Leviathan’s that were trying to get to the surface, “alright boys, we’ve got bigger fish to fry now, Kraglin, Ora, Torgo, follow us.”

“Will do Captain,” Kraglin said, the rest voiced their confirmations as well, and Quill turned his ship towards the first mothership that was causing them the most problems on the surface.

“Open her up, Quill,” Tony said, letting his suit fully encase him. Quill put his own mask up, and turned the Beatar’s interior into a vacuum before opening the cargo door. Tony went to the back, and watched the other Ravagers following them. Fri followed him out, and went towards the other fleet, who were getting ready to leave.”

“Be careful out there, Fri,” he said. 

“I’m the one who should be saying that to you, Tony,” she replied. He snorted.

“Tony, I’m opening the pod doors now,” radioed Quill, Tony gave him an affirmative, and went out to space, alongside the Benatar. He saw a small missile drifting behind it, and latched into it with his nanotech extensions.

“I’ve got the missile,” Tony said, when it was close enough for him to hold it regularly. He turned around, and watched Fri leave with the other fleet.

“Great, because we’re getting within range of the escorts.”

Tony turned his attention back to the Mothership, and used PLATO’s scanner to see the escorts. They were bigger than the Benatar with a couple large guns taking up most of the volume. He saw them warming up, and prepared evasive maneuvers. 

“I’m delivering the payload now!” Tony yelled to Quill, shooting off into open space. His suit was able to dodge the weapons fire well enough, and he twisted and boosted himself to avoid getting hit, the distance between him and the mothership was closing fast, and he got ready to flip and burn back to the Benatar.

“Alright, I’m releasing the missile, you can fire it,” Tony lobbed it towards the mothership, “now!” And with that, Tony got the hell out of dodge, and flew back as safely as he could manage without passing out. When he was on the Benatar, Quill closed the hanger doors, and went full throttle to avoid the blast. Tony was thrown against the wall, and behind them, the mothership glowed like a star for a brief moment, taking the escorts out with it.

“One down, eleven to go!” Quill said excitedly, Tony could hear the muffled cheers of the Ravagers from his earpiece..

“Yeah,” said Tony weakly, he hit his head when Quill boosted out of the way, “how close are we to the next one?”

“Just a few minutes away,” Quill said, “some are clustered fairly closely, but others are on the other side of the planet.”

“Dammit,” he said, “keep the ship in vac, we don’t have time to keep depressurizing,” he radioed from the back.

“Wasn’t planning to,” Quill said, as there was a flash of red above them, “that’s another Mothership!” He said, pushing the throttle of the Benatar, “hold on.” Tony grabbed onto a metal rung, and felt a jolt as they rocketed over to the next mothership.

After almost half an hour, Tony and the Ravagers had destroyed three of the twelve Chitauri motherships, while Fri’s group had destroyed two, and were one their way to a third. Nova Corp forces below were reporting an easier time fighting back, and evacuating their citizens.

“When all this is over,” Tony said to Quill, “I’m retiring,” he said. The Ravagers were approaching their fourth mothership, and the last escort he encountered had come uncomfortably close to hitting him.

In his ear, Quill barked a laugh, “I can see why. But wouldn’t this make them need you more?”

“No,” Tony replied from the back, “There’s enough people to take over from here. And I can do things behind the scenes, like tech upgrades. But this,” he said gesturing to the chaos outside, “this is enough for one lifetime.”

“Fair enough,” said Quill.

Tony radioed Parker, “hey kid, how are things down there?”

“Hey Mr. Stark!’ Tony could hear yelling and shuffling in the background, “pretty good, we still have outriders to deal with, but no more Chitauri over here.”

“How’s Loki?” Asked Tony quizzically.

“He’s great! His projections are great distractions, and he’s a really good help,” Tony nodded to himself, at least he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“Well, I’m about to destroy another mothership, talk later.”

“Yeah, bye Mr. Stark,” Parker said. The connection cut, and Tony refocused on the nearing mothership.

Each one Tony saw still sent a wave of horror through him. This one was blocking the view of the twin suns, and somehow looked even more intimidating than the others. He looked around at the Ravagers who were getting their weapons warmed up, and he stepped back outside.

“Releasing the missile now,” Quill said. Tony grabbed a hold of it, latched onto the Benatar’s wing, and waited until they were close enough for the escorts to begin firing on them. When they did, he let go, and boosted off towards the mothership.

“Now, Quill!” Tony said, aiming the missile towards the mothership’s heart. He flipped around, and flew back as fast as he could. Each time he did, the g-force was nearly enough for him to pass out, and when he was close enough to latch back onto the Benatar, Quill turned the ship around, and got away from there.

“Seven down, five more to go,” Tony said to a bunch of cheering Ravagers when Fri’s group gave them an affirmative. They watched another fireball consume the Mothership and escorts behind them. Then he collapsed in his seat, and got himself ready for the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a few Ravager names (I believe) from the original Guardian's comic, rather than making up my own.


	13. Gamora III and Thanos

Gamora followed Thanos through a crumbling stone archway at the top of the mountain. Snow flurries swirled around, falling from the sky, and she felt a numbing chill from the planet. She was shaking when they heard a voice come through the archway.

“Welcome Thanos, son of A’lars, Gamora, daughter of Thanos.” said a floating figure emerging from the darkness.

“You know us?” Asked Thanos, Gamora noticed the stones glowed for a moment, and she instinctively took a step back.

“It is my curse to know all who journey here,” he stated.

“Where is the Soul stone?” Thanos asked, walking closer.

“You should know, it extracts a terrible price,” he said, vaguely.

“I am prepared,” Thanos replied.

The hooded figure floated towards them, revealing a gaunt face, with red skin stretched over thinly, showing the finer features of their skull. Gamora wonders how long he’s been here, “we all think that, at first. We are all wrong.”

The figure turned, and floated away silently. Thanos turned to Gamora for a moment, and followed him. He led them down a path to the great stone pillars that had been visible from the bottom, and onto a flat, engraved part of the mountain.

“How is it you know this place?” Thanos asked.

“A lifetime ago, I too sought the stones, I even held one in my hand,” he said, keeping his back to them, “but it cast me out. Banished me here, guiding others to a treasure I cannot possess.” He stopped at the end of the path, and touched the ground.

“What you seek lies in front of you, as does what you fear,” he said, turning to face them.

Gamora walked past him to the edge. There was a semi-circle right on it, and similar engravings at the bottom, perfectly fitting into it. “What is this?” She asked, walking back to them, with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

The figure didn’t answer her, and Thanos spoke up, “tell me how to acquire the Soul stone,” he said.

“The Soul stone, you might say, carries a certain wisdom. To acquire it requires a sacrifice.”

“I’m willing to pay it,” said Thanos insistently.

“You do not understand, It requires a sacrifice, for which you love. A soul for a soul.” 

Gamora breathed a sigh of relief, and soon started to laugh, “all my life, I dreamed of a day,” she said, relishing in the sight of his face, “a moment when you would get what you deserved. And I was always so disappointed. You kill and torture, and you call it mercy. But now, the universe has judged  _ you _ . You asked it for a prize, and it told you  _ no _ .  _ You failed _ . And do you want to know why? Because you love  _ nothing _ . No one-”

Thanos looked down at her sadly.

“Really? Tears?” She asked, shaking her head, “do you-”

“They’re not for him,” the figure said.

Gamora looked at Thanos more closely, and realization dawned on her face, as her stomach turned, “no, this isn’t love,” she said, taking a few stumbling steps back.

“I ignored my destiny once. I cannot do that again. Even for you,” Thanos said solemnly.

Gamora looked down for a moment, and pulled out her knife swiftly. She turned to him, and attempted to stab herself when it turned to butterflies in her hands. She looked down in shock, before Thanos grabbed her arm, “I’m sorry, little one.”

“No, no!” She said, fighting back against him, as he marched forward to the edge, “Please!” She cried, but he wouldn’t look at her, “Thanos!” She screamed, Gamira tried to put up a resistance, but her feet couldn’t stay gripped to the surface. She cried in desperation, “you don’t need to do this, please, please don’t do this! There’s another way, there’s-” Gamora felt her feet lift from the ground, then she felt a rush of terror, before she fell to her death.

Gamora screamed out, watching Thanos get further and further away. The wind whistled in her ears, and her screams came to a sharp stop when she hit the base of the mountain.

Thanos looked down at the corpse of his daughter, when a pulse of blue shimmers in the sky behind him. He blacked out, and a moment later, sat up in a groan. He found himself sitting in a shallow lake near the base of the mountain. Then he felt something warm in his hand, the Soul stone. “Three to go,” he murmured sadly, placing it in his gauntlet. The rush of energy makes him feel exhilarated, but it’s not as much of a grand accomplishment as he felt it would be.

He pushed himself up to stand, and opened a portal to Titan, where Ebony Maw would be waiting. The surface was covered in orange dust, and he breathed in the air for the first time in many centuries. The landscape was as he remembered it, desolate, dead, with no trace of life aside from microbes. And there were ancient ruins everywhere. All except for a crashed Q-ship strewn across the ground.

“Maw,” he called out, “Maw!” Thanos made a portal and went inside the ship, but there was no one there. The console was broken, and there was not a trace of anything. Not Maw, not the stone, but he knew the crash was recent.

Thanos opened a portal to Earth, where Corvus Glaive was looking for something, “Glaive,” he said in a commanding voice.

“Sire?” Corvus asked, turning to him, he was in a brightly lit hall of Terran design, “did you get the stone?”

“The Time stone isn’t on Titan, do you know where it is? Where is Maw?”

“No sire, I don’t. And Maw hasn’t communicated to us since he left Earth” he said.

Thanos felt a brief surge of rage, “what’s the situation on Xandar?”

“They’re still putting up resistance,” Corvus said, “motherships are being destroyed, and they’re pushing back.”

“Well, then you and I should go to Xandar,” Thanos decided, “tell Obsidian to lead the charge, and Proxima to find the Mind stone.”

“Yes, sire,” Corvus said. When he was done, he stepped through the portal to TItan.

“When we have the Power stone, we’ll find out what happened to Maw, and the Time stone,” Thanos said to him, opening a portal to the war-ravaged landscape of Xandar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of splitting Endgame into two parts. One for the characters after the snap, and one for when they try to bring everyone back. Because together, they'd be pretty long.


	14. Loki II and Parker

The ground shook under their feet, forcing Loki and Parker to duck under some low hanging buildings after an alien craft blew apart a pack of Outriders, and flew away in a screech. The blast rang in their ears, and left the Outriders splattered across the ground. “Come with me,” said Loki to a couple Xandarian citizens when the coast was clear.

Parker rushed ahead using a stolen Chitauri spear to defend them from the Outriders. Loki had to admit he picked up on it quickly, and with the combination of his reflexes and the weapon, he made short work of them. Over the last hour almost, most of the Chitauri had fallen, due to their Motherships being destroyed. So Drax and Mantis were helping with another transport somewhere in the distance, but still well within sight.

Several Outriders made their appearance from a wrecked building, and encroached on the two quickly. Parker noticed first, and charged at them. He spun in the air to avoid their claws and gain momentum, then he took the first three out with a few well placed blasts, and stabbed the forth in its back before it could realize what was going on. He straightened up to look at them, and let his helmet retract. “Hey,” he said to a small boy beside Loki, clutching a toy fearfully, “you’re going to be alright,” he said, nodding like he was trying to convince himself of that. “Come on, let’s get you on the transports,” he said, leading them with Loki to a large ship huddled with people. “Get them out of here,” he said to one of the Xandarian pilots, when they were all on safely.

Loki looked around them, no screaming, no running, they were finally done here. He turned to the Midgardian beside him with interest, “why are you willing to work with me?”

“Why not? You explained what happened earlier,” Parker said, clutching his side, and breathing heavily now that they could rest, “we’re allies now.”

“I tried to take over your world,” he said in a pained voice.

Parker studied him for a moment, “you were forced to, mostly anyway. Things change, and right now, you aren’t trying to take over a planet, you’re helping to save it.”

Loki considered that, and was about to say something when Rynn walked over.

“We got everyone out. It was about a few hundred people,” Parker said to him. They watched as the ship ascended into the sky, before zipping through a jump gate in the upper atmosphere.

“And that’s all we can do for now,” Commander Rynn replied, “come with me, we’ve got this sector evacuated, we need to go further out.” They nodded, and followed the Nova Corps armies and emergency personnel through destroyed buildings, tattered streets, burning vehicles, and trash. Parker had a downtrodden look on his face, seeing all the personal belongings strewn everywhere. Dolls, clothes, shoes, some of them were bloody. Parker stepped on something, and saw it was jewelry of some sort, covered in blood with a blue tint. Loki heard the breath hitch in Parker’s throat.

“We should be fighting Thanos” said Drax coming up behind them, “When will he show his face?”

“How many people are left on Xandar?” Parker asked, turning his attention away from the destruction.

“Billions still, but since you’ve arrived, tens of millions were evacuated worldwide,” he said, Parker nodded, “and Thanos has not made his presence known, but rest assured, we will be able to halt him.” Loki looked at his skeptically, but didn’t say anything.

Rynn looked at a small holographic projector where there was a weak distress signal, “there’s some civilians shortly that way,” he said, pointing in the direction of a ruined building. They heard the faint screech of the Chitauri craft as they flew into view in a tightly knitted formation, which blocked their way. They must’ve been commanded by faraway Motherships to still be fighting. Parker gripped his spear, and let his helmet envelop his face again. Four menacing golden arms protruded from his back. Drax spun his blades around next to him, and got into a fighting stance..

“We’ll hold them off to distract them,” Parker said, looking over his shoulder, “take care of the civilians.”

“Come with me,” Rynn said to Loki, as Parker and Drax ran in headfirst. They had to take cover from the firing Chitauri for a moment before they rushed inside the nearby building where a small group was hiding.

“Come on everyone,” he announced to them, “we need to get on the transports immediately, there’s not much time!” They were slow at first, but a number of explosions outside which shook the building was all that was needed for them to run out. Rynn, Mantis, and Loki did their best to make sure they wouldn’t stray too far.

Loki radioed Tony using the transmitter he gave him, “Stark, how are you doing up there?”

“Between me and Fri, we’ve got nine destroyed now, only three to go,” he replied, “how’re evacuations going with the civilians?”

“Good,” Loki said, leading some people into a transport, something sounded like interference on Tony’s end, “we’ve got several thousand down here, Rynn is coordinating with Nova Corps forces all over the planet, they’ve gotten tens of millions so far,” Loki jumped as several Leviathan’s in the distance crashed into the ground. The shockwave of the explosion soon followed.

“That’s another mothership down,” Tony said, “we should be down there soon, tell us if anything changes.”

“Will do,” Loki said, pondering what choices led to him ever working with Midgardians.

Parker and Drax ran at the aliens head on, while the Chitauri craft hung in the air and shot at them relentlessly. Drax roared in anger, and it tempted Parker to do the same. The blasts didn’t hurt him, and the nanotech was able to keep up with the damage. It didn’t seem to affect Drax either, which was a relief to him. The two rushed in quickly before the Chitauri could gain an upper hand on them. Drax took on the foot soldiers, while Parker leapt in the air and drove the flying craft into each other. He jumped from craft to craft using some of his webs, and set up a chain explosion within seconds.

Drax laughed next to him when Parker landed, “that was impressive weird spider-dude,” he said clapping Parker on the back. 

Parker jumped when a particularly large chunk of debris landed next to them. He panted, “thanks, Drax,” he said, checking his webbing supply, “there’s several more clusters over there,” he said pointing in the distance to a small swarm, “think we should take them out?”

“No,” Drax said puzzled, “why would we take them out? We want to kill them.”

“That’s what I- Nevermind,” Parker said, shaking his head, and grinning under his mask, “let’s go-” He said running before he received an emergency signal from the comm devices Rynn gave them. Parker whirled around to see what was going on, and saw a cloudy bluish-gray portal opening. A giant figure walked out, with a glistening Gauntlet, and deep purple skin. A moment later, an alien with a lethal-looking spear stepped out next to him.

“We shall leave the Chitauri be,” Drax said darkly, lifting his swords, “and make that monster pay.”

Parker didn’t respond. His heart was hammering painfully, and he felt uneasy. Thanos had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry I haven't updated. I didn't forget, just got stuck for a while. I tend to have bursts when I'm writing, and that bubble kinda popped. But here's chapter 14, 2/3 of the way there!


	15. Steve II and Shuri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I had this about halfway finished, but I got really busy last month and lost steam. I don't have any sort of schedule, but here's the next chapter!

Steve ran onto the battlefield to the numerous alien forces outside. Chitauri craft were managing to get through the barrier, and fly through. Some didn’t get far before breaking apart from damage, but a few were able to get past the Wakandan defenses and survive. But the Outriders, unfortunately, had better luck getting through the barrier. It was a good thing they were little more than a nuisance.

He and Q’Reril - a Wakandan warrior - led a small squad and charged several Outriders who were daring to go around to the city. The twelve of them moved in from behind, and soon caught up. The Outriders roared, and stopped their attempted encroachment. Q’Reril used his energy shield to block the Outrider from slashing his chest open. Steve used his shields to stab into its thick leathery flesh while the others did similarly with their spears on the surrounding beasts.

“We need to move the perimeter out further,” Steve said wearily when they were all taken down, “we’ve got too many weak points.”

Q’Reril nodded in agreement, and radioed a Wakandan general to tell them. Soon, equipment and warriors started moving their way, “you had to deal with this in New York some years back, how did you handle it?”

“With great difficulty,” Steve said grimly, “we were barely holding on, and only won after Tony carried the nuke through. But I don’t know how to get rid of these bastards now,” he said, slicing through another Outrider.

The two of them walked to the approaching warriors, who were some ways away, and shooting down Outriders and Chitauri crafts as they approached with energy cannons. Steve and Q’Reril helped them set up the rest of the defenses. “How does this compare to the forties, Steve?” Q’Reril asked, while the other warriors handed him a new cannon to mount over the top, normally it would take specialized equipment, but Steve’s strength negated that.

“Well, a lot, I think. Do you want the list, or a summary?” Steve started, grunting as he pulled up the cannon, “a lot is different. I could go on for hours probably. The things I’ve seen, well,” He trailed off, and finished mounting the cannon, then let the Wakandan warriors finish bolting it down, “we’ll need to meet back up with King T’Challa soon,” Steve began, then he looked up at the Outriders for the first time in a while and noticed they weren’t barreling forward the barrier as much as before. Instead, they were starting to spread out, he furrowed his brow as he watched them, then felt a jolt run through his body, “they’re encircling us!” He yelled in realization. Steve jumped off the platform, and broke out into a run.

“Do you have any recommendations, Steve?” T’Challa asked over his earpiece, he was part of a small Platoon near the center, and leading the rest of the warriors.

Steve didn’t answer immediately, and turned back around, “Q’Reril, help lead the squads here,” he yelled. The man nodded in response, letting Steve sprint over to T’Challa’s small base. It looked like he recently took down some encroaching Outriders, and was busy directing forces, and coordinating attacks on his Kimoyo beads again. Steve hurried towards him, and interrupted T’Challa, “We can’t let them get around the shield. If they get around us, we’ll have no defenses to protect Vision. You need to open the shield,” he said.

T’Challa stared at him in shock, “then we’ll have no defense against anything!” He said, several of the Dora Milaje looked at him in similar looks of disbelief. One of them was in the middle of treating a warrior who had gotten slashed by the Outriders.

“Only some of the shield, not all of it. Just enough to bottleneck them,” Steve clarified, “we need to keep them in front of us.” He gestured to the heatmap which showed the Outriders encircling in front of them, and pointed at the ones getting around back.

T’Challa looked distraught for a moment, but a look of calm determination washed over him. He brought a finger to his earpiece, “Shuri, I need you to do something important for us, we’ll need to open the barrier.”

“Open the barrier? Brother, have you lost your mind?” Steve winced at her sound of disbelief over his earpiece.

T’challa signaled for available Wakandan forces to fall into organized battalions through his beads, then he addressed Shuri, “we just need you to open part of it, northwest section seventeen. On my signal.”

“On your signal,” Shuri confirmed breathlessly. Soon, thousands of warriors had started to assemble, creating a series of rings towards the city. Hundreds were still focused on defense, while the rest awaited their orders. 

T’Challa began giving orders to the various battalions, the ones on the outer edges would flank the Outriders, keeping them in the center, and taking care of stragglers. Others would stay put, and assist the defense platforms from a distance, while the rest would charge forward.

Steve looked at T’Challa, who had a grim look on his face. “Ready when you are, your highness.”

“This will be the end of Wakanda,” M’baku said tensely from beside Steve, he had been helping T’Challa with his own warriors from the mountains.

“Then it will be the noblest ending in history,” Okoye said, her voice wavered slightly.

T’challa walked in front of the other Wakandan soldiers, “Yibambe!” He yelled, the barrier shuddered as the Chitauri blasted it with everything they had. But it didn’t break. Not yet.

“Yibambe!” The warriors yelled in unison, a small pack of Outriders were slaughtered by a cluster of their energy cannons. And a sonic boom was heard as a spacecraft quickly descended to the surface.

“Yibambe!” T’challa yelled, several Chitauri craft were knocked out of the sky.

“Yibambe!” The spacecraft hit the Earth with enough force to shake the battlefield, and caused ripples in the barrier. Then another wave of Outriders charged forward, their growls and screeches grew louder each second.

“Yibambe!” The Wakandan warriors disabled their shields, and aimed their spears true.

“Wakanda forever!” T’challa’s mask went up, and charged. And the Wakandan’s let out a great battle cry which could be heard from miles. Thousands of warriors charged forward, while the rest remained at their defense platforms, continuing to provide support for them. “Shuri! Open it now!” T’Challa yelled as they got closer to the barrier.

A bright blue line appeared for a moment before splitting the barrier open and letting the Outrider and Chitauri craft in. Their advanced jets battled for aerial superiority, and massive energy cannons tried to keep them bottlenecked at the entrance.

Steve and T’challa led the front ahead of everyone else, and jumped into action.

Shuri worked tirelessly, jumping between different holographic projections, desperately trying to free Vision from the stone in as little time as possible. Wanda was standing beside Vision, silently, while several warriors stood outside the door, waiting for any danger that could come to them.

Shuri had called two other scientists to help her reroute the connections to the Mind stone. “Okay good work,” she said, “we’re making good progress so far,” she rushed between stations, and fretted over their work. She and the scientists were almost twenty percent complete when there was a power surge throughout most of the lab. Shuri whipped her head around to look outside, and saw the shield was still standing, but it had evidently taken a large hit.

“We’re running out of time, we’re running out of time,” she muttered under her breath. The other scientists looked more worried than her, and fumbled with their hands.

“Is the shield down yet?” She asked them, “are we _ out _of time?” They shook their heads. “Then focus. No mistakes, we can’t afford those right now.” She sighed, and dove back into Vision’s schematics.

Outside the door, there was some commotion, and a light blue alien with horns leapt into the room. The warriors at the entrance shot them several times. But it wasn’t enough, and they leapt towards Vision while Shuri’s assistants ran away in fear.

“No!” Shuri and Wanda cried out in unison. Shuri grabbed her Panther claws, while Wanda’s hands glowed a brilliant red.

“Just try,” Wanda said dangerously. The alien roared, and jumped out with her spear pointed towards Wnda’s chest. Shuri blasted her away, and the alien skidded on the floor. She tried shooting at the alien again but it was moving too fast. The windows shattered, and Wanda used her powers to throw the alien out of the lab.

“I’ll keep her down there, just save Vision,” Wanda said, before jumping out of the window after the alien.

Shuri panted heavily, scared, and out of breath. She put the claws away quickly and looked at the scientists, who were just outside the room, “well, what are you waiting for?” Shuri asked the scientists, “we have work to do!”

“Yes Princess,” they said, rushing back to work.

Steve battled the Outrider forces as best he could. Every so often, an energy blast would fly past him, and hit an Outrider or Chitaurit, but there were still so many of them. He fought alongside a small squad, which was on the frontlines, and kept them bottlenecked.

The flanking forces kept the Outriders and Chituari at bay, and funneled them into the center where they could be slaughtered, or before they could encircle the city.

Steve watched as an Outrider barrel forward, and nearly tackled a Wakandan to the ground before he leapt in front of it with his shields up, to stop the beast from killing them.

“Are you okay?” He asked, pulling the warrior up.

The Wakndan nodded, and looked out of breath. “Thank you,” he said, Steve nodded, and turned his attention back to the fight. Several Wakandan aircraft flew outside the barrier to take care of the stray Chitauri craft. A breeze of air hit them as they zoomed past.

“Shuri,” Steve started, “how’s that stone coming along?”

“We’re almost a third of the way done, Steve,” she replied, “But we were attacked. Wanda is on the battlefield fighting a blue alien.” Steve felt his stomach drop, he knew which she was talking about..

“Where is she now?” He asked urgently.

“I don’t know, outside of the building. I’m still focused on Vision.”

Steve turned to the general leading them, “can you handle this without me?” he asked.

The man gave him a Wakandan salute, “we will hold them back,” he said. Steve nodded gratefully, and raced towards the city as fast as he could.

When he was about halfway across the battlefield, another thundering shock went through the ground, and the barrier fizzled for a second before disappearing completely. Steve looked around in shock, the alien forces had broken through. They were out of time.


	16. Tony V

Tony’s blood ran cold when Loki talks to them again with a simple message: “Thanos is here.” He swears under his breath and turns to Quill, whose face is etched in anger.

“Is Gamora with him?” He said into the earpiece, glancing over to Tony.

“No,” Loki replied, “he’s with Corvus Glaive, one of the Black Order. I need to go, he has three of the stones.” Then the line went silent.

Immediately after, Tony and Quill jumped into action, “how close are we?” Tony asked, strapping into a chair behind him.

“We can be there in a few minutes. Friday is further away, and about to attack another Mothership.” He replied, while working the controls, and turning the Benatar back in view of the planet.

“Then she’ll have one more after that,” Tony said, more to himself than Quill, as they had recently destroyed another before Thanos arrived.

Quill opened communications to the rest of their fleet, “go help escort escape pods, and the other fleet. We’re going back to the surface, good work everyone.” Tony heard them say their affirmatives, and felt a sudden jolt in the ship as Quill practically nosedived back to Xandar.

Soon after that, plasma trails engulfed their view as they re-entered the atmosphere. The hull of the Benatar shook as they descended, and Tony mentally prepared himself to face Thanos. This was it, everything he had worked to protect. Today would make or break it.

When the Benatar dipped below the clouds again, they saw desolation. No one was running in the streets, the entire city seemed to have been evacuated. But in an open courtyard surrounded by ruined buildings were the others, who were doing what they could to hold off Thanos and Glaive. There were a small number of Nova Corps soldiers fighting too, with more on the way.

“Let me out,” Tony said to Quill, looking at the scene below. He nodded, and opened the back. Tony unstrapped, and flew out of the ship into the fray, immediately firing missiles at Thanos while Quill took the Benatar down for a landing.

Thanos turned to face him, and Tony felt a rush of fear before it was replaced with anger. His right arm protruded a blade from the nanobots, and Tony went to attack him. To his right, Parker and Loki were fighting who he supposed was Glaive, who was backing the two against a building.

Tony brought his arm down to cut into Thanos’ arm, but he blocked it with the Gauntlet, and narrowed his eyes at him. He could’ve sworn he heard Thanos mutter “Stark,” but he recovered in a second, and slammed his other arm against Tony, who was knocked back into a Nova Corps soldier. He used his repulsors to stabilize himself, and bent over to help the soldier up, he was surprised for a moment that his skin was a light blue. “Hey, sorry,” he said, extending his hand to the sprawled soldier.. 

The soldier was stunned for a moment, then looked at Tony with fierce determination in his eyes and gripped his hand.. “Thank you,” was all he said, grabbing his gun from where it skid across the ground before opening fire at Thanos again. Tony approved of his bravery, and rushed back into the fight after him.

Dr. Strange was using his abilities from a distance, and shielded the Nova Corps soldiers from attack. “Can you restrain him for a second?” Tony asked him, he was trying to get in close, but couldn’t get an opening.

“Just a moment,” Stephen said, and casted bright tendrils to restrain him, which got Thanos’ attention as Tony went in for another hit. A few blaster shots hit Thanos from behind him, and Tony whipped his head around to see Quill joining the fight, rapidly firing his blasters, which angered Thanos. Tony glanced over at Peter, who looked like he and Loki were just able to keep up with Glaive.

“Fri, any updates?” Tony asked, firing a few small missiles at Thanos to distract him from Drax slashing at him with the swords.

“We’re coming up on the last Mothership, then we’ll meet you at the surface,” she said. 

“Good work, we could use some more help,” he grunted out after Thanos slammed against Tony again.

Tony scanned the battleground, they were unprepared, but they needed to do something, “Strange, Commander, we need to get an advantage, any ideas?” He asked, turning the arms of his suit into cannons. They seemed to disorient Thanos for a moment.

“We just need to restrain him for longer, but his minion will still be a problem.” Strange said, holding Thanos’ hand open with fiery tendrils.

“We have more forces on the way to slow Thanos down, but we can only hold back right now,” Rynn replied, as he fired at Thanos’ huge form.

“Mantis, can you do something?” Tony asked the Empath, who was keeping her distance in a building, waiting for an opening.

“You’d need to restrain him for several moments, I can’t put him to sleep instantly,” she replied.

“Parker,” Tony said, hoping he would catch on. Peter seemed to be trying to get an opening with Glaive, but his spear would slice through the webs he shot with him. Loki nodded at Tony, and cast several more projections.

“Yup,” Parker responded, Loki used his telekinesis to grab the spear, and threw it to the side, while Parker used his webbing to restrain Glaive. Mantis rushed towards them, and put the roaring alien to sleep.

There was a screeching in the air behind him, as a ship careened towards them. Everyone jumped out of the way as it slammed into Thanos at terminal velocity, and a light blue alien broke free from the wreckage, and started attacking him. The tendrils that were around him before broke at the impact, and the two were soon locked in combat.

“That’s Nebula, she’s an ally,” Quill said over the earpiece to the shocked crowd of fighters.

“Well she sure knows how to make an entrance,” Tony said approvingly, as he snapped out of his stupor, and got back into the fight.

“Now’s your chance,” Loki said, stumbling back, he looked exhausted, but Tony couldn’t concern himself with that as Thanos roared in anger at Nebula. Taking Glaive down, and seeing Nebula was the last straw for him, he knocked the soldiers and Drax back when they approached again. Tony shot himself forward, and tugged on the Gauntlet, making Thanos struggle, while Parker swung in from the side, and used his webs to pull Thanos the other way.

“Strange, now would be a great time,” Tony said, panting for breath, as he tried to get a grip with his feet.

“Just a moment,” he said, casting a small portal above Thanos. Mantis landed on top of him, and put her hands on either side of his head. Thanos roared for a few moments, but was soon subdued. The soldiers stumbled back in shock, and stopped firing on Rynn’s command where the Avenger’s had restrained Thanos.

“Parker, get over here, help me pull this off, we don’t have much time” Tony said, “Rynn, get your soldiers ready when he comes back to his senses.” Rynn signaled the soldiers, and they encircled Thanos, keeping their weapons locked onto him. 

“He is very strong,” Mantis said, Tony could see the tears in her eyes, as she struggled. 

Parker dropped his webs, and rushed over next to Tony. “We gotta get this off him, so c’mon, pull.” Parker grunted from next to him, and planted his feet to give him more leverage.

“Not so strong now, huh?” Quill said, sauntering over, “where is Gamora?” Thanos mumbled something incomprehensible, and a flash of anger crossed his face, “answer me!”

“He is in anguish,” Mantis cried out, “he mourns.”

“What?” Quill said weakly.

“He took Gamora to Vormir, and returned with the stone,” said Nebula, speaking for the first time. The cogs turned in Tony’s head, and he turned to Quill.

“Okay, Quill, you have to cool it, let us take this off first,” Tony said in a shaky voice. But Quill didn’t seem to hear him.

“Is it true, did you kill her?”

“I had to,” Thanos grunted.

Tony heard FRIDAY say she was coming to the surface, but he barely heard her, “Quill, don’t - don’t engage. We almost got this off!” He yelled. But Quill paid him no mind.

“No you didn’t,” he snarled, bringing his blaster down on his head, “no you-” He didn’t get to finish, as Tony let go of the Gauntlet, and pulled Quill away from Thanos.

“Guy’s, it’s coming off, I got it-” Parker said, cut off by Thanos roaring in anger. His eyes snapped awake, and he took the Gauntlet back, throwing Parker to the side. The anger on Quill’s face was replaced by shock, and shame. 

Tony heard another roar from behind him as Glaive woke up, and broke free of the webs he was encased in. He charged at Parker, closely followed by Drax. Tony turned back to Thanos, angrier than he’d seen so far, and charged.


	17. Important Note

Hey guys! Very long time, no see. Sorry, I burned out around chapter 16 when I got ideas that would've resulted in a rewrite, and it put in a stump for a while. But I’m getting over that now, and for the past month or so, I’ve worked my way back up to this, and rewritten/added onto older chapters because I noticed some continuity errors. You can re-read it, but there’s really only a handful of new scenes. Some stuff was also expanded, but there wasn’t a rewrite of the story.  
Chapters that got minor/moderate changes: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Going forward, I think the main part of this will be a trilogy. The next part will be a loosely connected fic that will show what some of the Avengers were up to in the 5 years in between Infinity war/Endgame. I don’t know how that will be formatted - if every character I’m writing in gets a long chapter, or if there’s alternating POV that jumps time.

And finally, there may be a FOURTH part to this. I haven’t fully decided, but it has given me a new drive to work on this, because it’s going to be a doozy. It will be mostly original, but borrowing from comic concepts and such. I can’t share too many ideas I have, but here are some teasers:  
I won’t start plotting it until I see “The Eternals” (or at least some trailers) because I’m going to be working their characters and the Celestials into it. The time travel technology will be transformative and important in a unique way. And the title for this 4th part (if I write it) will be “_The Avengers: War in Heaven_.” Take from that what you will.

Until next time.


	18. Parker II

Parker panted as he fought back blow after blow from Glaive’s spear using short swords repurposed from the suit’s golden arms. His reflexes were enough to keep up, but he’s never fought like this before. Almost every fight he’s had in the past was laughable at best. Most were able to be taken by surprise, and only a couple offered any challenge. Drax was the reason he was able to maintain a rhythm, the two of them parried his attacks, and were able to mount a solid defense, but it was harder to fight back.

Glaive pressed forward with another flurry of attacks towards them, and aimed his spear at Parker’s chest. His senses screamed at him to do something, so he firmly grabbed it, and twisted violently to flip Glaive over, “Drax, come in from behind!” he said as Glaive recovered, and rushed directly at him. He got into a solid stance, and found himself wishing he had Karen right now.

Parker stood his ground, but Drax dodged Glaive, and swung his sword, “your Order will pay for what you did!” he yelled, slicing through Glaive’s arm, letting out a spurt of blood. He let out an anguished cry of pain which quickly turned to rage.

Glaive turned to him, snarling, “if you wish to die first, I’ll be happy to oblige,” he said, knocking Drax’s swords away, and kicking him back in one fluid motion. He was about to stab the spear through Drax when Parker’s web caught the blade, and sharply jerked it from his grasp. 

Glaive turned his attention from Drax, and slammed his fist against Parker’s midriff, which knocked the air out of him, and sent him falling to the ground. He was taken by surprise, and was about to make a move against him when Drax’s sword went through Glaive’s chest from behind. He looked down in shock, and was tossed aside by Drax, who held out a hand to Parker.

“Are you alright?” Drax said, pulling Parker up. 

He nodded, and wiped the blood off of his faceplate. “Yeah, thanks,” he said shakily.

Parker was startled when Thanos roared in anger, and he felt his stomach drop; they just killed one of his followers in front of him, “but I’m not so sure that was a good idea,” he said slowly.

“Corvus Glaive is a ruthless monster. He deserved it, and so does Thanos,” Drax replied, pulling the sword from his chest. Thanos glared at them, and closed his fist. The power stone glowed brightly for a second, and Parker momentarily stilled as his body screamed at him again to move. He used his webs to pull Drax out of the way, and jumped to avoid the beam of energy that burned through a building behind them, causing it to collapse. It looked like it was falling in slow motion, until enough weight was on one side that it gave completely, sending gray dust everywhere when it hit the ground.

“We need to get the stones,” Parker said, “this is our opportunity,” he said as they heard the sounds of fighting and yelling.

“You’ll be killed,” Drax said dismissively.

“Well, we need-” Parker started before Drax interrupted him.

“But only if you do it alone,” he finished. Drax wiped the blood on his pants, and turned where Thanos was standing, “I’ll distract him, you can grab a stone.”

Parker nodded at him, and activated his earpiece “Guys, Drax and I are going for the Space stone,” he said, rushing back into the fight. After Quill described what taking the power stone was like when they were on the ship, he didn’t want to touch that one without the Gauntlet. 

“Parker, don’t you dare,” Tony warned.

“We need to get the stones from him now, this is our only chance, we won’t be able to take the Gauntlet,” Parker insisted as he got close enough to them, and saw the others were already using the opportunity themselves to try and restrain Thanos again. Drax ran ahead to help them, while Parker ran at full force, flipped over them, and dug the glowing blue stone from its bezel. Its energy surged through his body in strong pulses as he resisted the urge to scream in pain; then he willed himself to go somewhere else before Thanos could make a grab at him.

He stumbled through the portal, and looked around. Almost fifty feet away were the others, who were defending themselves as Thanos broke free again. Parker closed his eyes, willing himself to be near Thanos, and jumped through the portal to kick him at the back of his head by surprise. He quickly made another, and went through it before he could do anything. 

Parker turned to face Thanos again, who had grabbed Tony from the air, and threw him at Stephen to release the tendrils from the Gauntlet. The Power stone glowed as Thanos pointed it towards his direction, so Parker created a portal around the Gauntlet itself to cut his hand off. But it wouldn’t give until a burst of red light dissipated it.

“So that’s not an option,” Parker muttered to himself, he launched himself in the air, and used the momentum to go through a portal and knock him to the side. Quill rushed past him with Nebula who said something about grabbing one of the stones. Parker followed them, using several rapid-fire webs against Thanos to disorient him until there was a scream of pain and burst of purple light as Quill, Nebula, and Drax held onto the Power stone.

There was a sonic boom behind them, which they ignored as Thanos roared in rage at the three Guardians. He ran towards them, with the Reality stone glowing brightly when Fri launched herself into him, sending him flying into an empty building.

“Nice to see you again Fri,” Parker said.

“Let’s just focus on getting the other stones,” she replied tersely. 

They all rushed towards the building when a glow of red light enveloped them, until they were all standing in a green field. The entire city was replaced by miles of hilly grassland, and their battleground was surrounded by flowers of unknown origin. The sun bathed them in warm golden light, and Parker felt like he was going lightheaded.

“Where is he?” Tony asked, on edge, which snapped Parker back to their situation. Tony’s repulsor turned into an energy cannon, as he looked around for any signs. The soldiers aimed their blasters around too, but it was clear no one knew what to look for.

“The Reality stone,” Loki said slowly, looking around them, “it’s effect is quite strong.” Parker reached down curiously, and examined a bright purple flower that was near his foot; he couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The flower moved with the breeze, and even had a slight scent. 

Rynn looked around the field with narrowed eyes, “Stark, is there any way we can see past this?” He asked. He signaled his soldiers to group together, ready to fire on all sides.

“This is the work of an infinity stone, I’ve got nothing,” Tony said, disheartened. 

Parker’s neck buzzed again as he felt something coming behind him; he created another portal, and fell through it as a gush of air went past where he stood. “That’s Thanos!” He shouted when he came through the other side behind Loki. The wind whistled loudly as it changed direction towards him.

Tony and the soldiers began firing wherever the wind was, while the Guardians who held the Power stone let out an energetic burst from it. Parker felt his neck buzz again, but he didn’t move fast enough the second time as a gust of hurricane-force winds carried him up.

“Peter!” Tony yelled in alarm, blasting off the ground; he aimed his repulsors at the winds, scooped him up mid-air, and flew to the others, “there has to be some way of fighting him like this,” he said looking around.

The wind whistled around them for a while, and stopped. The field became eerily quiet, and even the fake flowers stopped moving with the wind. Everyone stood warily, and started moving back-to-back. Then a red-orange glow washed over them, and they were surrounded with people. Parker looked around, and did a double-take; because standing near Tony was his father, Howard, “uh, Mr. Stark-” He started to say, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Peter,” he felt his stomach turn to ice, and whirled around to face his Uncle.

“Ben?” He croaked.

“It’s been a long time,” he said gently, walking towards him. Parker stumbled back into Tony, who was staring blankly at his father. He snapped himself out of the daze, and put a firm hand around Parker’s shoulder to steer him away.

“Stay back,” he said in an authoritative tone. His arm was still in its blaster phase, and he switched between Ben and Howard.

“It’s alright Peter,” Ben said, holding his arms wide, “just give me the stone, and I’ll come home to you.”

Parker shook his head violently, “ no, you’re not real. You’re not real!”

“Give me the stone Peter,” Ben said as his face started to contort. All around them, the “people” were approaching their loved ones. Loki was backing away from a woman in silky robes he hadn’t seen before, a woman and child closed in on Drax, and a woman standing near Quill stroked his face gently. Everyone looked like they were in various states of shock. Parker looked around wildly, and glared at Ben.

“Enough!” He roared, clenching his eyes shut. He launched himself at Ben’s projection, and went through it so it would disappear. “They’re not real, we need to snap out of it!” Parker yelled to them.

The world moved like slow motion to him as everyone backed away, or began working themselves up to dissipate the projections, while Fri flew around to help them; then he heard a small gust of wind, and a cold voice behind him, “you shouldn’t have done that, child.”

Parker felt the air knocked out of him, as he was forcibly pulled away. Tony began firing at the air behind him, but was driven into the ground. Parker scrambled to get a footing so he could fight, and was disoriented when gusts of air swirled around him carrying grass and dust. He tried to make a portal, but felt something grab his wrist before he could fall through. 

The pulses from the stone dipped in strength, and he realized that Thanos was trying to take the stone back. “No!” He squirmed in the air to grab onto it. Then Loki materialized behind the wind, and forced the air to dissipate in a burst of green, so he could pull Parker behind him.

“Keep an arm on me Peter,” Loki said bitterly, “we need to end the rest of these projections.”

“For that, we need to find Thanos,” he said, gripping Loki’s arm,”any ideas?”

“Look wherever the wind is and try to expose it, do you have anything?” He asked, walking towards the rest of the group. The soldiers were getting rid of the last projections, while Fri helped the Guardians to handle the Power stone. 

“I have something, but I don’t know if he’s listening,” Parker replied, unsure of how to explain. He looked around for any signs, feeling the slight buzz at the back of his neck, “do Asgardians have a version of hot and cold?”

“What?”

“If you get close to what you’re looking for, you get hotter, figuratively,” he said, darting his eyes around them.

“I’ll just defer to your judgement,” Loki said, confused.

“Follow me,” Parker said, walking around in a slight circle, until the buzz got stronger again, “This way,” he said. He pulled Loki along, until it made him change direction.

“We’re just walking aimlessly, child.”

“No we’re not, Thanos is moving. Hold on” Parker closed his fist, and willed a portal to drop in next to Thanos. Loki was about to follow when a burst of red light forced the portal to collapse. Wind swirled hard around Parker, and he was gasping for air. He felt the stone start to give again, but Loki wasn’t able to get to him in time before it was in Thanos’ grasp again. A gust of wind slammed him on the ground, and he stumbled back onto his feet.

Parker started running across the field where the Guardians were; he knew they would be the next target, but he couldn’t get far before he felt his feet sinking into the ground like quicksand.

“Guys, watch out!” Parker shouted in desperation. The three Guardians shot bursts of energy around, but one after the other, Nebula, Fri, and Drax were thrown to the side. Quill was lifted to his feet, and the bright purple glow that enveloped his body vanished as Thanos grabbed hold of the stone again. 

Parker felt the grip at his feet loosen, and he rushed over to help the Guardians, who were covered in ugly black scars. Then he watched Thanos materialize, as Tony and Loki rushed towards him at full force.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my version of Infinity war. Not much will change in Thor's scenes, so I'll just leave that alone to lighten my load, he'll come in later as he did in the movie. Same with Gamora's backstory, because I don't have anything for that.
> 
> This will probably be darker than Infinity War. Endgame is worse though, honestly. *takes a look at my time travel ideas* Oh yeah, definitely worse. But there will be other things I'd like to tackle. Like a Black Widow funeral, More Tony and Nebula interactions, Professor Hulk arc (possibly started here, I dunno), Carol and Monica reunion, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] reunion, and so on. But we'll see, there's a lot I want to do, so we'll see how much I can get to.
> 
> Also, while I am taking some ideas of my own from my post here, I still would like to see fics that use these! https://archiveofourown.org/works/19865413 feel free to take a gander


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